


Cultic Epithets of the God Janus (disputed)

by niemals_etwas



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, GUN ROBOT, harlots, root vegetables, turgid stricklake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-01-26 06:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 73,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12551588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niemals_etwas/pseuds/niemals_etwas
Summary: A chance encounter with a young boy and his mother changes everything for the troll Stricklander, or arguably nothing.





	1. patulcius

_2005_

The unmistakable sound of shattering glass jolted Walter Strickler from his reverie and he glanced down, taking in a ruined jar of marmalade at his feet and a small boy with wide, blue eyes.

At half-past-eight on a Thursday evening -- with seven essays on the effects of the Counter-Reformation still requiring rigorous comparison with their corresponding Wikipedia articles, a Soviet-era transmission referencing an unusual rare-earth rock only partially decrypted, and nothing in his cupboards resembling food except for a tube of soda crackers and a tin of beans -- it had become necessary to sally forth onto Arcadia's main drag in the vague hope that he wouldn't give up and order takeout again (centuries of acclimation to a human diet would not allow his palate the easy out of a stray cat or moldy linens any longer).

The boy at was frozen in the act of picking up the glass. He was runty, barely out of his toddler years, and thin, with a mop of unruly dark hair framing two huge, bright eyes whose expression was oddly unreadable. 

"Don't tell Mom," the boy whispered conspiratorially, prompting Walter's attention to shift to the only other occupant of the canned goods isle: a woman, young, mid-twenties, knuckles visibly white around the handle of her grocery cart even from here, as were dark circles under her eyes. She was staring at a box of macaroni with the unmistakable ferocity of someone about to start crying at the slightest provocation. 

Walter had been vaguely aware of the two of them entering the store just as he had; the boy trying desperately to help his mother pick out a cart, find a coupon book, and grab material from the lower shelves. It had seemed like fairly ordinary childish enthusiasm at the time, and he had discounted it. 

Now he glanced back at the child -- still trying to pick up the glass from the floor -- and quietly removed a handkerchief from his back pocket. "Now, now; don't touch that. We'll sweep this to one side so no one treads on it, and then I'll find someone who works here to mop it up. I wonder," he surreptitiously glanced at the woman, whose fixed gaze bespoke a weariness years in the making, "if you might watch my cart for me while I do so?"

"Okay."

"And don't touch the glass, mind."

"I know," the boy said with the irritation of the very young who have grasped the concept being reiterated. Walter spared him a smile for that. 

Two minutes later, Walter returned to an empty aisle, his cart abandoned. He thought nothing of it until a hand tugged his pant leg over in the produce section. 

"I tried to watch but Mom said we had to get hot dogs."

"I understand."

"I didn't see nobody take anything." The boy's expression was intensely, frighteningly earnest. "Is my mom in trouble?"

Walter glanced down again, perplexed. "Why would she be?"

"Because I spilled the orange stuff." The boy rubbed hands - still residually sticky - on the front of his shirt. "I didn't mean to."

"Good heavens, no. Don't worry about it." Walter carefully selected a cabbage and set it between the cans of smoked oysters and apricot preserves in his cart. "Everyone drops a jar now and again; stores expect that sort of thing. Anyway, they'll just bill me, if anything."

His companion picked up a rutabaga and began poking its skin. "Why?"

"Because I told them that I dropped the jar."

The boy's eyes widened, then narrowed. "That's lying."

"Ye-es," drawled Walter, momentarily nonplussed by the intensity of the child's disapproval, "but I think the real issue is that someone assumes responsibility, don't you?"

"Jim, come here," said a woman's voice, so subdued, and Walter cursed his choice of words. "Leave the nice man alone."

"Actually," he heard himself saying, "if it's not too much trouble, could you please grab me a bag of croutons? Those ones down there? I can't bend that low." The boy (Jim? strange name for this generational cohort) glanced in the direction of his pointed finger and gamely darted off.

In this way, Walter allowed himself to become a secondhand babysitter for the next twenty-odd minutes. Centuries of practice enabled him to radiate the perfect aura of non-patronizing interest and amused reserve necessary to keep the boy preoccupied while his mother gathered her groceries (and her resolve) as their paths led them inexorably through the store. 

"I'm gonna be five," the boy informed him solemnly, putting the wrong kind of lightbulbs into Walter's cart. "In -- six days?" He glanced over at his mother, who nodded.

"Many happy returns."

"I'm gonna get a bike and my dad is gonna help me ride it," the boy added; Walter observed the almost-imperceptible tightening of the woman's shoulders. "Mom says I gotta wear a helmet."

"I agree. You can come to considerable harm without one. I expect you'll have training wheels?"

An expression of trepidation flitted onto the boy's face. "Dad says they're for babies." His tone indicated he wasn't sure what he felt about this. "He says you don't need them."

"It's one way to learn," Walter conceded. "Mind you, sometimes training wheels help you to find your balance faster than just trying it on your own. I'm sure you'll be good at it, either way."

The child looked at him with a sudden intensity. "I don't fall down." He abruptly ran down the length of the toiletries aisle while Walter surreptitiously switched out the bulbs for the ones with the correct wattage. Moments later, the unmistakable sound of small tennis shoes thudded back and something collided with his cart. "See? I didn't fall down." He pointed at a bag of epsom salts in Walter's cart. "What's that?"

"It's for baths."

"I hate baths."

"Ah, but you're young. A warm bath is one of the few consolations of old age."

The boy squinted at the package. "S - salt?"

"Why -- yes. You can read?" Remarkable.

"Salt doesn't go in baths," his companion said severely. His mother intervened.

"It's good for your muscles, Jim. Now please -- can you go get Gran-Gran's special pants for me? The purple bag?" Jim gamely thundered back down the aisle to peer at the adult incontinence section, leaving the woman and Walter alone once more. 

He half-turned to deliver a particularly crisp bon mot about youth and internal vitality, but the sight of her red-rimmed eyes killed it in his throat. The effect was intensified by the profound depths of her irises, deep blue enhancing the contrast that much more against the signs of obvious distress. Their gazes locked with the sudden graceless horror of those who observe pain and those observed in pain. Some unasked-for New Wave song started playing on the store's P.A. system. 

"I think he put a turnip in your cart," the woman said at length, tone low. Her hair was red. Somehow he hadn't noticed that before.

"Rutabaga," Walter acknowledged. 

"I'm so sorry."

"It's all right. I need the fiber -- "

"I'm so sorry," she repeated as though she hadn't heard him. "I -" 

Jim jumped onto the cart, waving pantiliners above his head. "These ones, right?"

"Yes, sweetie," his mother responded, and Walter felt relieved by the break from her trapped stare, but even more so by the tenderness returning to her voice. "Good work! Now, can you take this -" she liberated the rutabaga from Walter's cart and placed it into the boy's hands "- and put it back where you found it?" 

Pragmatist that he was, Walter used the ensuing confusion about where root vegetables belonged to slink towards the front of the store, forgoing the next three items on his list. The sudden lapse in conversation was replaced by a heightened awareness of the background music interspersed with some idiot in the parking lot leaning into his car's horn.

_Those who came before me / Lived through their vocations . . ._

Halfway through being rung up (the cashiers never remembered the price of cabbage nor believed Walter when he insisted it wasn't lettuce), his companions resurfaced at the adjourning register. Their cart, he noticed, was full of store generics with corresponding coupons paperclipped to their surfaces. A dyspeptic cashier scowled as Jim -- Atlas in miniature -- struggled to heave a sack of potatoes as big as himself onto the conveyor belt. 

"That reminds me," dissembled Walter, "I may have knocked over a jar -- "

A fresh round of honking drew all attention to the lot, where a man in a blue station wagon was venting his spleen against the world despite being fully parked. Intuition made Walter shoot another sidelong glance at Jim's mother, and his suspicions were confirmed -- but her expression was not one he expected. No fear, no guardedness, no panic; merely contempt. Infinite weariness, and contempt. 

For another excruciating moment, her gaze caught his own and the sorrow returned to them. They asked for nothing, those eyes, not even for recognition of her misery, and certainly not for anyone's pity. Walter ducked his head and began counting out his change.

_I see a ship in the harbour / I can and shall obey . . ._

He snuck a glance at the occupant of the station wagon as he walked out to the lot: dark hair, unusually bright eyes -- except for the petulant scowl and five o'clock shadow, Jim might've been a carbon copy of the man. It did not please Walter to observe the woman and her son receiving no help from him with loading the groceries into the back of the car, and perhaps that was what prompted his decision to slow down at the cart return station. 

"How old are you?" the boy asked, trying and failing to wheel his cart into the corral. Walter carefully swung the edge into alignment for him.

"Oh, I don't do the math anymore. Frightfully old."

"How old?"

"Well, I have reason to believe Diocletian was Emperor when I was your age, but we were provincials, putting it mildly. Not yet two thousand years old; I feel comfortable saying that."

"A hundred?"

"Several."

"Seven hundred?"

"In any case," concluded Walter, "congratulations on your upcoming birthday. I hope your bicycle adventures will be safe ones." He smiled again. "Though I have it on good authority that you don't fall down." The boy blinked, then suddenly bestowed a radiant, open-faced grin upon him; it was the most winsome thing Walter had seen in years. 

The child scampered back to his mother, and Stricklander returned to the work of ending the world.

 

_2005 (later)_

 

 _"Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?"_ Walter grimaced as the picture on the screen developed artifacts, audio and video rapidly falling out of sync with each other. "Otto? For god's sake -- "

A disjointed if familiar giggle emerged from his laptop speakers, complemented by a smear of light across round spectacles. _"'Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht, was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?'"_

"Barely. I'm astounded you managed to get a signal at all." Walter leaned back in his chair, glancing behind the desk at the world map with its carefully-distributed pinpoints. "How are Ur and Lagash treating you?"

Another high-pitched giggle. "I would not have called without reason, _mein Freund_ , as you know." Something blackened and indistinct moved into view of the camera, albeit choppily, and the next two minutes were spent interrupting each other as the feed kept cutting out. In spite of the Janus Order's extensive and subtle infiltration into the military and various contracting firms long before this current war began, an encrypted video channel capable of showing anything worth looking at was apparently still a dream beyond a dream. 

" -- looks analogous to Section 7a, possibly the inner column. No data -- "

Walter growled in frustration as the signal cut out again, and his stomach echoed the sound. The thought of his groceries sitting in the back of the car surfaced and he berated himself for not succumbing to his worse impulses; if he'd been a little less abstemious, he'd have eaten by the time he received Otto's call . . .

"Just send it -- Otto? Send it here, with the other samples. It's the only way to be sure." He held up a hand at the other Changeling's protestations. "And don't go through the usual channels; they're finally cracking down on looters. I'm still determining where the last shipment ended up." He delivered a particularly pointed glare at where he thought Otto's face had been in the last ten seconds. "I shouldn't want to explain that to our esteemed supervisor."

The signal grew choppy again. " -- ere is he?"

"Oh, still in Siberia. Decimating the native antelope herds, if I infer correctly." Walter spun his pen on the surface of the desk as his gaze wandered to Russia and the Post-It Note marked with a single, unmistakable rune and a question mark. "It's been quiet for a while. Either he's given his minders the slip or he's eaten them. Again. In any case, see that these stones make it here instead of languishing on some Interpol agent's desk; there's a good man."

 _"Ja, ja._ " A fragmented sigh. "Until Gunmar's Return."

"Until His Return. _Tchuß_ , Otto." 

He closed the window, and the abrupt silence was deafening. Here, alone again in the office behind his office, long after the end of the school day, with the game in the school gymnasium over hours ago and the last janitor just now locking the door . . .

Walter's hand brushed against his trouser leg and encountered something sticky: marmalade. In spite of himself, he smiled.

 

_2005 (six months later)_

 

It had not been what Otto had promised. Something was unusual about the stones, to be sure (why was Oligocene volcanite mixed in with Neo-Assyrian gypsum?) but it wasn't the Bridge. The consolation of some rather amusing cylinder seals did go a little way towards mitigating the sense of frustration. 

That, and he'd managed to find an establishment that made a proper cuppa and had outdoor seating. With the school year over, he'd lately fallen into the bad habit of not leaving his apartment for days at a time, endlessly poring over field reports and maps until he nodded off. Teaching kept one's mind in good rhythm; once presented with the opportunity to do as he pleased, Stricklander faltered, obsessed, or idled. As such, forcing himself to work out in the world was a small step towards regaining his verve -- and yet, the sour taste of disappointment had followed him here. They'd been so sure.

Another false positive. Another dead end. Walter cursed, and took another long sip of tea. 

"Excuse me. Um." A shadow fell across his notes on cuneiform. "Sorry to bug you, but -- can I just set my things down here for a minute?" 

Something about the young woman seemed vaguely familiar, so he assented with a nod. A frayed messenger bag crammed with three-ring binders, textbooks, laundry, and what looked like a leaking thermos was promptly deposited on the other side of his table. He watched with detached interest as its contents were systematically removed and deposited into neat piles -- or attempts were made at this, as the slippery surfaces of the folders cascaded over each other to the ground. Walter sighed inwardly, but knelt down to retrieve them for her. 

"You're the Turnip Man!"

He started, hitting his crown against the underside of the table, jostling the remainder of his tea out of its cup and down his neck. "Ack!" Gracelessly, he fell against the support column, prompting another volley of binders to fall. A disproportionate amount of these seemed to find his spine. 

"Oh -- geez! Oh -- " A frantic blue gaze met his, a hand on either shoulder guiding him back into his seat. "I am so sorry, hang on, I've got a napkin or -- something -- "

 _You've already done quite enough_ , he nearly spat, but just then he recalled where he'd seen those eyes before and the penny finally dropped. "You -- you're young Jim's, er, mother, aren't you?" 

"Yeah! Yes. Sorry. You remembered?" She was blotting up the tea that had spilled on his notes with what looked like a pair of hospital scrubs, tracking black ink across the surface of the paper. "Geez. I am so sorry -- "

"It was a rutabaga."

"What?"

"A rutabaga. Not a turnip." Walter shuddered slightly as the lukewarm tea beat a downwards path towards the hem of his briefs. "And please, Mrs. -- "

"Barbara. Ms. I mean, Lake. Barbara." The two elderly ladies brunching at the nearest table were giving them decidedly confused looks.

" . . . Ms. Lake," he managed, "leave those alone for now." He made an ineffectual gesture towards the ground. "Those, they'll get wet -- "

As his companion yelped and attempted to salvage her papers, Walter removed his jacket and tried to absorb the burgeoning tributary before it reached his buttocks. Torn between peevishness and concern, he watched her stack her material back onto the tabletop with slightly more success. "All present and accounted for?"

"It better be," she muttered, then flushed. "Um. Hang on -- "

\-- and then her fingers were in his hair, probing, and his aching skull felt as though someone dumped the contents of an electrical storm into it. Stricklander had long prided himself on his improvisational abilities and quick-witted assessments of developing situations, but occasionally life threw one curve balls. Sometimes these took the form of a human groping you. 

"You'll probably have a bump here by morning," the woman -- Lake -- said, something decidedly different in her tone, clinical yet relaxed. "Ibuprofen to make the swelling go down, or just aspirin. Cold compress should do it." She jerked his chin up as easily if she were a farrier inspecting a horse's teeth. "Show me your pupils."

Her gaze was terrifyingly direct. Sharp, clear depths of saturated lapis - no, sapphire - no, the color was too much like water, the sea - no, no, it was that very same pigment they'd used in the scriptorium, yes, the Virgin's blue -

"I've not seen that color since the thirteenth century," he heard himself saying out loud.

Her eyes narrowed. "Huh. That doesn't sound good. Did you drive here?"

"Oh -- no. No, Ms. Lake, that was just idle woolgathering. Forgive me," and he gently guided her hands away from the sides of his face, surprised by the current they generated under his fingertips. "My phrenological examination is concluded?"

This prompted an uptick in the corner of her mouth, but her manner was otherwise one of decided severity. "Hmm. Have you ever had a concussion before?"

He let go of her hands. "Rather forward of you."

"It increases your chances of getting one again," she responded, folding her arms. 

"Merely funning. No," and Walter rubbed the back of his head, wincing (yes, a bump seemed likely), "and it takes far more than a tap on the head to put me out of commission." _As many have learned to their great detriment_ , he did not add.

"You'd be surprised," she said in that oddly . . . _appropriate_ voice. "Are you familiar with the symptoms? Is there anyone who can get you to medical treatment if you start exhibiting them?" She reached for the nearest sheet of dry paper, jotting something down with --

He lunged for his key. "NO -- not that one, if you please. It -- leaks." 

If she noticed the sudden intensity of his outburst, she didn't show it, instead grabbing one of the loose ballpoint pens scattered on the table. "I'm leaving you with the number for the hospital. Give them a call if you start experiencing any of these."

Walter screwed up his eyes in consternation at the chicken-scratchings left on his translation of the cylinder seals. "Anxiety? Nausea? Emotional outbursts? These are symptoms of being alive in the twenty-first century, not concussion."

"Better safe than sorry," she retorted. "Speaking of which . . ." The smooth, collected tone drained out of her voice, as did the focus behind those singular eyes. "I -- I'm sorry about all this . . . well, all this." She coughed nervously before turning her attention to the bottom of her messenger bag.

"'Into every life, some pain must fall', or words to that effect." This won him a pursed-lipped smile. "Are you . . . looking for something in particular?"

"Now who's being forward?" she retorted. "Ah! Got 'em." She brandished a keychain in triumph. "I really should get a lanyard for these." With a sigh, she began stuffing the bag full of her books and binders, wincing as she rolled up the still-damp scrubs with their newly-acquired inkstains. "Geez. I'm really sorry about your . . . notes?" 

There had been some speculative scribbling on how the stones might've been moved out of their usual strata, but nothing that betrayed the mission; if there had been anything pertaining to the Bridge, he certainly wouldn't have been so stupid to bring it out in the open. He waved a conciliatory hand. "You can't be sorry forever, Ms. Lake."

Again, the pursed-lipped smile as she ducked her head. "Here's hoping." She wrenched the heavy bag back onto her shoulder, staggering for a moment as weight was redistributed.

"Careful, young Atlas." Walter leaned back in his seat. "Don't upend the world." She flushed, red against blue. "My regards to Jim. I trust he's enjoying his bicycle?"

There was an instantaneous change in her demeanor, and suddenly she really was the same woman from the store: despairing, enduring, focused inwardly. "He . . . not exactly." Barbara Lake glanced across the street, jostling the keys in her hands (again, he noticed, white knuckles). "Um. Thanks again."

"For -- " 

But she had slipped across the street to that same blue station wagon as last time. Walter watched her pull out of the parking space and thoughtfully rubbed the back of his neck, debating whether or not to order another cup of tea. His eyes fell back towards his smeared, illegible translations, and on the warning signs of neurological damage. The ballpoint pen held its own against the damp paper far better than his fountain pen had.

Instinctively, he looked for his keypen. It was not on the table. 

 

_two days later_

 

"We don't hand out our staff's contact information," the man behind the desk said bluntly, his eyes narrowing. 

"I assure you, I don't need contact information. I merely wished for confirmation that she works here -- ?"

"That won't be possible." 

Walter resisted the urge to reach over the reception desk and pummel the cretin's face with the vase of wilting carnations next to the phone, instead channeling his frustration into steepled fingers. "If anything, I wanted to leave my contact information for her, seeing as she has something of mine."

"Sir, are you having a medical emergency?"

"Obviously not -- "

"Then I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises." The man gestured at the old woman who was wheeling up behind Walter. "This is a hospital, not the Missed Connections page."

Walter shot him a look far less murderous than he felt, bestowed a markedly warmer smile upon the geriatric lady and her husband, and stalked out of the reception area of Arcadia Oaks General Hospital. Once outside, he surveyed the parking lot for a blue station wagon. He'd already checked four clinics and two nursing homes in the desperate hope that Barbara Lake might've been employed there. Nothing.

Given his penchant for redundancies and backups -- features which he had forcibly introduced to the Janus Order, over much kicking and screaming -- it was profoundly idiotic to be thwarted in such a simple way. Why hadn't he ever made a backup key? Oh, granted, Changeling-reactive selenite wasn't quarried just anywhere, and in nine hundred years of owning that particular lock and key set he'd never lost either, but now --

Walter gritted his teeth as centuries of subsumed rage threatened to erupt through his skin. A gleam of light reflecting off the windshield of a nearby car warned that his eyes were betraying him; he ran a hand over his face.

Yes, the goblins knew he was still a going concern. And yes, he'd made a point of casually emailing a few agents just to indicate that he was temporarily indisposed (and more importantly, alive and well). One week of not answering the phone -- metaphorically and literally -- might come to nothing; after that, the others would suspect that something was awry. Fragwa and the rest of his repellent brethren were already wondering why finding this woman was so important to the mission; if they discovered he'd lost access to his own office . . .

Stricklander had been deposed once before, only regaining his position due to the confluence of several highly unrepeatable circumstances, one of which had been the First World War. Once was enough.

Without access to his inner sanctum -- the nerve center of the Order's operations -- the work on the reconstruction of Killahead Bridge would slow to a crawl, just long enough for some enterprising upstart or some old rival with a grudge to sink the blade in deep. Or, he suspected, for Bular to finally get an excuse to do away with him in a much more terminal sense than last time -- 

Kicking his car's tire in a fit of sudden pique, Walter cursed that woman -- Barbara Lake -- and the benighted chain of events that had led her path to ever cross his. All his plots, subtleties, contrivances, all the dirty dealings and long knives, all the battlefield crises and graveyard jaunts, and what had undone him? A jar of marmalade. He should have let the little whelp bloody his fingers on the glass. Should have trodden them into it --

_\-- you don't really mean that --_

He paused, a smattering of details falling across his mind. Her white knuckles around the cart. A ring. The feel of one absent when he'd eased those (remarkable) fingers off his scalp. Six months. The look of tired anger on her face in the store. A boy who was not enjoying his bicycle. 

Of _course_ he could find her. He knew Jim's birthday, or at least its range.

The next hour was spent combing the newspapers on record at the library (and listening to the head librarian complaining about the difficulties of digitizing everything, what's wrong with microfiche) before stumbling across a birth announcement: to James and Barbara Lake, a baby boy (8 pounds 4 ounces, good lord). Paternal grandparents were Merle and Sandra Lake (unlisted or not in town; he'd already tried all instances of Lake in the phonebook); maternal grandparents were Jacob and Evelyn Steiner. 

More digging in the papers indicated that Jacob had passed away only three months prior to Walter's chance encounter with his kin in the supermarket. Evelyn was still around, with a listed address and phone number in the local directory. 

The part that really made him boggle, however, was seeing that same number in the Wanted section of the current edition of the newspaper, which he was perusing as a reward for all his hard work (schadenfreude leveraged against humans was a filthy habit, but the Personals were a guilty reading pleasure, especially when he had reason to suspect that his fellow teachers were trying to be discreet about their romantic lives). Evelyn, or someone with her number, was looking for a replacement part for her washing machine. 

What followed next was something of a long shot, but he'd worked miracles with less.

_Missed Connections:_

_Turnip Man seeks Lady of the Lake. You have something of mine (besides my attention). Cup of tea? 555-8746_

_two days later (again)_

 

There were seven messages on the answering machine. Three were from Otto, mostly nattering on about unusual silicate deposits and enquiring hopefully after any information that Walter had gleaned from the shipment, and had he liked the shipping name he'd used? The rest were field reports. Nothing too urgent. A normal four days.

However, there was also a missed videoconference flag on his laptop from the previous morning. Initially he dismissed it as Otto checking in, before noticing where it had originated. Heedless of the time difference, Walter redialed and waited, grimacing. He'd been in a relatively good mood an hour ago, but now he had an inkling that things were merrily speeding towards the edge of a cliff. 

Seeing who picked up did little to change this. "Lord Stricklander," Nomura acknowledged with a slight bow towards the screen, the act of obeisance failing to conceal the suspicion in her bulbous, green eyes. "At last."

"Ms. Nomura," he drawled, twisting the cap on his pen. "What an unexpected surprise. Does Andrei Ignatievitch know you're scraping your claws on his precious equipment?"

Her nostrils flared, one eyelid twitching slightly. She'd never been particularly good at concealing her emotions in her trollskin, and she'd always worn her human flesh like an uninspired mask. Wasted potential. "I was summoned."

"Summoned? By whom? I don't recall --"

The camera shuddered as something seismic occurred offscreen as an indistinct dark mass moved into the frame. An obsidian-edged voice flooded the room, feedback shrieking through the speakers.

" _I_ summoned her."

Walter forced his gaze to lock with the two baleful red orbs that now occupied the center of the screen. "Lord Bular. So good to hear from you again; how is the taiga this time of year?"

Bular ignored that. "You weren't here when I made contact. Why?"

Walter sighed, casting a world-weary look off to the side; inwardly, his mind raced. "I'm only monitoring the Trollmarket Gateway, after all." 

"Answer the question."

He narrowed his eyes. "I did, rather. I'm the sole operator in this region, aside from the goblins. Sometimes, goblins fail to exercise due caution and humans notice. Sometimes, trolls notice. You must admit that the latter outcome is infinitely more dangerous to our ends?" He leaned back in his chair. "The negligent parties have been reprimanded. It merely took some time to smooth over."

One of the great difficulties in lying to Bular was that -- being naturally indisposed to believe anything his subordinates said -- one never knew just how to calibrate the scale of one's fabrications. Bular hated stealth, hated secrecy, hated Changelings in general, hated Walter in particular, and had likely been going mad from hiding for the last millennium or so. Subsequently unequipped to understand or appreciate the Order's mission in human society, his recurring solution to the problem of detection was to destroy the source and eat the corpse. Exponentially worse when multiple witnesses were involved.

The massive black troll exhaled in a thunderous snort. "I tire of your excuses, Impure."

"Tire all you like. I do your father's bidding and abide by his faith." Walter leaned forward ever so slightly. "How's your back, by the way?"

This prompted a vicious snarl. Nomura, faintly visible on the periphery of the screen, attempted to sidle even further away as she desperately interjected, "We -- there was a notification from the Moscow operatives, about Korshas -- the Bridge segments from Otto's expedition have been stolen --"

"Otto's expe -- _what_." Stricklander leaned even closer. "'Stolen'? By whom?"

Bular cast a murderous glare offscreen. "The Impure was careless. He attracted attention."

"Not the Trollhunter -- "

Another snort. "Human attention." A huge black fist blotted out the screen as the laptop was rotated to show the unfortunate Changeling gagged and bound to a chair, eyes swollen shut, head lolling. In spite of himself, Walter winced.

"I assume you didn't find him like that," he hazarded. "Andrei? What happened?"

Nomura leaned into the frame, her tone noticeably more relieved now that Bular's ire was focused elsewhere. "Korshas's reputation got the better of him. As far as we can tell, he insulted some bigwig or another and, well . . ." She glanced at her erstwhile associate. "Someone decided to teach him a lesson. They took everything in his apartment -- "

Walter objected. "Ignatievitch wouldn't keep anything related to the Bridge in his home; that violates at least three major operational codes -- "

"Otto sent the shipment there by his request." Nomura shrugged. "He -- Korshas -- was afraid the Mob was watching the safe house." Behind her, Bular jabbed one of his massive black blades under Andrei's chin, tilting it upwards. "Apparently this was all because he wouldn't sell some oil baron's daughter a necklace -- "

"Why on earth wouldn't you do that, Andrei Ignatievitch?"

Nomura's eyes glinted in wicked amusement. "It was part of the haul from the Venice expedition."

Walter winced. "Ah. _That_ necklace. Hardly prudent to have cases of hysterical lycanthropy released into the general public . . . next time, Korshas, don't display baubles that humans shouldn't --"

"There will be no next time," Bular declared, and the blade slammed down.

 

_earlier_

 

It had been such a comparatively good day, otherwise.

He had allotted himself five to fifteen minutes for conversation with Barbara Lake, preparing to accept a plethora of apologies with as much good grace as he could muster, hopefully imbibing at least one cup of tea without wearing it. He would be civil, decorous, not in any way betraying the panic and frustration and disproportionate wrath that her absent-minded escapade had engendered in him. Above all, he would make it clear that this was the second and last time their paths would cross; he had no time for social pleasantries and this was likely to be compounded by whatever departmental nightmares awaited him in his office.

They spent over an hour talking. To be fair, he did manage the civil and decorous angle; she made it quite easy. 

The waiter arrived with a second pot and the check just as Walter managed to verify his theories on where Barbara had been hiding. "You're a medical student?"

"Intern, actually." She sighed. "As of last week."

"Congratulations!" Walter extended his right hand, noting that the distinct feeling of something still emanated from the tips of her fingers; interesting. "What's your intended field of study?"

"Emergency medicine." Barbara's hand, he noticed, had small nicks and cuts on it, clean but ragged nails, and slight discoloration around the ring finger. 

"Fascinating," he murmured, letting her hand go. "I had a hunch -- that is, that you were employed at the hospital in some fashion, but the gentleman at the front desk was less than forthcoming."

"Sorry about Brent," she said, idly stirring her tea in a counterclockwise motion. "He's a real guard dog. Well, he has to be -- the police department around here has some screwy ideas about getting toxicology reports without going through the right channels, plus they had some weird stalker stuff going down a few months ago . . ." She shivered.

"Quite all right, Ms. Lake. I didn't want to compromise anyone."

"Barbara." She smiled. Something about that induced him to smile back. "And -- sorry. Walter? Is it all right if I call you Walter?"

"My friends call me Walt." Perhaps they would, if this iteration of himself bothered to make them. It was odd that he was considering this angle only now. "Never Wally," he decided aloud.

"Never Barbie, and that's a deal."

He once again extended a genteel hand with a deliberately solemn expression. "Accepted." They shook, Barbara's smile quirking up higher around the edges of her mouth. 

"Anyway, I'm just so glad to have found you! I was honestly freaking out as soon as I saw this thing -- " She gestured to the pen, now safely on Walter's side of the table "-- and I called the cafe twice, but they didn't know who you were." She gave him a look of mock severity. "Who still pays with cash, huh? I bet they're unmarked, nonsequential bills too?"

"I resent the implication that I have anything to hide." Walter hooked his thumbs into the lapels of his jacket. "I paid with perfectly ordinary, trackable currency, obtained through good old-fashioned securities fraud and confidence scams. How very dare you?"

Barbara guffawed, a fleck of tea beading on her lower lip. Walter was not sure why that seemed important. "Aww, I've slighted his honor! Pistols at dawn?"

"Foils, madam." He poured himself some more tea, vaguely annoyed how calm he felt in spite of the looming obstacle of getting into the office, and even more vaguely annoyed that he didn't want to think about that just now. "Bring a second, a flask, and a shovel."

"Couldn't we just have a knife fight, like civilized people?"

Oh, Barbara, _Barbara_. "I fear you might have me at an advantage, there. How are you at Rummikub?"

Another snort. "Anyway, I'm just glad that the washer chose this week to die -- okay, no. I'm just glad that we ended up on the same page. Literally." She raised her cup in a salute; only some of it spilled over the rim. "Otherwise, I'd never have found you. To the Classifieds Section!"

"Ah, so you're on the hunt for appliances?" He sipped his tea, the picture of innocence.

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah, uh," Barbara coughed, pushing auburn bangs out of her eyes. "It's -- we're -- I'm staying with my grandmother right now, and the washer's been there since, oh, the Eisenhower administration." She sighed. "They really knew how to make 'em back then."

"Presidents?"

"Machinery." Barbara took a sip, frowning. "But they don't do repairs on her model, anymore. And the warranty expired, so we'd be stuck with buying a new one, and that will probably break in less than ten years. So I'm looking for replacement parts."

"Planned obsolescence has much to answer for," Walter said with the barely-sublimated fury of a being who had spent the latter half of the twentieth century replacing refrigerators without knowing why. "Any luck?"

"A few leads -- but I'm blathering." She put down the cup, leaning forward over the table. "Sorry, but can I ask you what you were doing when I barged over? What those notes were about?" Barb straightened up slightly in her chair, like a shy child. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking . . ." 

"Cuneiform. Tablet seals. Some poor near-Eastern merchant was complaining about his competitor's shoddy business practices -- at least, that would seem to be the gist of it." Walter rubbed the back of his neck. "Mind you, my Sumerian isn't what it used to be. Though to be fair, neither is Sumer."

Her shoulders hunched in interest. "Thought so. You're a professor?"

He smiled, a mask for a series of quick calibrations. "Too kind. No, I teach at Arcadia Oaks High School, though my field is History." He raised his cup again in acknowledgment. "Partial credit."

Barbara's eyebrows raised. "Huh. Archaeologist was my next guess."

"Oh, I once had aspirations. But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead."

"Shakespeare?"

"Close. Marlowe." 

"Close enough for partial credit?"

"Probably; most people don't even recognize it's a quote." He sighed. "Someone's going to accuse me of murder, one of these days." Idly, he tried to remember the last time that had actually happened; the XYZ Affair? Or Burma? Or . . .

Barbara tilted her neck to drain the last of her tea. Her throat was pale, long, with carefully-delineated tendons. Structurally, it put a good few cultic reliefs of Ishtar to shame.

"Sorry," he interjected, abruptly aware that he had drifted from one reverie to another and had missed whatever she'd just said. "Could you repeat that?"

"Alibi. Give me a heads-up and I'll say you were helping me with the laundry." Barbara sighed. "On that note, I obviously had an ulterior motive for meeting you here . . ."

For a terrible split-second Walter recontextualized everything that had been said in the past hour and came to the conclusion -- no, no, she couldn't possibly think this had been a --

But Barbara had stood up and was tucking a faded ten dollar bill into the sleeve left by their server. "Good thing this place is so close to the laundromat. So . . . I've got to go, but it was really nice having . . . well. " She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Jim's smart for his age, but it's nice when conversations don't revolve around Gun Robot."

He glanced down. "Paying with cash, Ms. Lake? Tsk, tsk." 

"Suspicious, isn't it?" She gently swatted his hand away as he reached for the check. "Of course, I did actually steal something from you, so there's some criminal activity right there." She shifted her over-large bag onto her shoulder once again. "I . . . suppose I might see you around?" Her smile was an unlikely juxtaposition of shy and worldly; it defied description. "Assuming, of course, you actually manage to get that concussion." She held out her hand again.

Some vague, confused set of buried principles demanded that he kiss it, but in light of the previous scare Walter managed to return a reasonably warm handshake instead. "I look forward to it. My best to Jim."

"You know, he's still trying to help people at the supermarket," Barbara remarked, smiling ruefully. "I think you awakened something in him."

"My legacy as a teacher is realized! I may die content."

"Well, except that he keeps putting what he thinks people want into their carts, and -- " She flushed, suddenly stifling a giggle. "No. Inappropriate. Thanks again, Mr. Strickler."

"Well, now I'm curious." He took a last long pull from his cup.

"I, uh, made the mistake of describing something he found in the bathroom cabinet as a balloon," she said, primly. "Unfortunately, he can read boxes, so when the nice old lady, uh, asked him for help finding party decorations, he ran to the family planning section."

Walter did not succeed in his earlier stated objective of not wearing his tea.

 

_evening_

 

The first love of Stricklander's life changed him completely.

His familiar had been taken from a warband somewhere in the morass of shifting borders of collapsing empires. In a time of churn and confusion and constant westward expansion, it was an easy enough adjustment from his previous experience in Gunmar's cohort: the same violence and double-dealing, but now on a much smaller scale, and on horseback.

In later years, he would take umbrage against historical views of the Visigoths as savages out of a sense of loyalty to those members of his adopted people who had cared for him (or at least never sought to kill him), and he would also realize with age and hindsight that if anything, his human family had been unusually dysfunctional by the standards of most _Homo sapiens_. 

This notwithstanding, he had easily embraced battle and slaughter and cruelty amongst and against humanity in those younger years. Gumm-Gumm society was hierarchical, brutal, and built nothing but heaps of ruin; very little of this new society indicated that humans were much otherwise. He fought his older brothers, his cousins, other Thervingi, the people from the east who were always pushing his tribe further into Roman territory, Roman troops, and whatever trolls that he could get the drop on for many years. A rank-and-file Changeling of no status, young and green (figuratively and literally), he lived out several lives in this way, learning the blade, disappearing into other clans and Gothic nations as necessary, eventually pillaging his way into Italy under Alaric in 410.

Granted, there had been stirrings, odd swellings of new emotion that surfaced as they rode south, seeing the aqueducts, the roads, the evidence of a more massive infrastructure than anything he'd ever run across in his decades of wandering, but then he saw Her and was born anew.

She was long in the tooth, weary, dusty, a shadow of her former glory, but the sun shone on her and for a few wondrous moments Stricklander's stone heart forgot to beat.

Rome. The City.

And that had been the end of Wallia, whose name meant slaughter, and he was forever after that moment a creature of empire, for better and for worse. They'd still sacked the place, of course.

Now, nearly sixteen hundred years later, Walter found himself in another Mediterranean climate. _Et in Arcadia Oaks, ego._

He leaned against the hood of his car, exhaling deeply. The sight of the town at night -- a minor galaxy radiating out of the deep folds of the valley -- never failed to calm his nerves and set his soul to rights. Not Rome, but something of the Eternal City, as every true city was a reflection of the same. Humans could innovate. They could build. They could imagine.

Trolls, by and large, couldn't. Or wouldn't. 

Walter sighed and poured himself another round. At least it was summer. The last thing the remnants of his dignity needed right now was for some of his students to pull up for clandestine fornication purposes and discover their history teacher sitting on his car with a bottle of Château Rothschild and a Solo cup.

He'd spent an excruciating two hours exchanging recriminations and thinly-veiled threats with Bular after Korshas's untimely execution (for once, Walter was glad that the resolution had been sufficiently poor -- pun largely unintentional, poor Andrei). Then, in spite of his insistence that the chain of command (what was left of it) be followed, Nomura was deputized to track down the missing cargo, which would likely elicit more attention from the local authorities. _Then_ , he'd had to reach Otto and ask some very pointed questions about why the Russian operation had received segments of the Bridge while all he'd been sent some piddling rocks and Mesopotamian receipts. The rapidly-disintegrating bonhomie (well, Otto's equivalent thereof, anyway) and resultant stark panic led credence to Walter's suspicion that the shipments had been mixed-up -- the fool probably had a goblin post them. Again. 

And _that_ had been the cue to frantically contact Fragwa and call off the hunt for the blue station wagon, which he had somehow entirely forgotten about in all that had transpired. Full circle on the saga of Barbara Lake and the Missing Key.

"Another fine showing for the armies of darkness," he drawled to no one. "Bad luck, Andrei." He poured out the last of his wine on the ground in commemoration. "Keep a lower profile in the next life."

Stupid of Korshas to have gotten so cocky, advertising things he couldn't sell to people who didn't like to hear 'no' -- and Bular couldn't wait to make an example of him, declaring him 'compromised' as though he would know the first thing about that, hah. Walter knew a taunt when he saw one.

Officially, he and Bular were roughly equals in the chain of command, which had never sat well with Gunmar's son. Bular had been a battle-leader in his father's army, and the only non-Changeling Gumm-Gumm this side of the Bridge. Stricklander, meanwhile, was a jumped-up slave who had clawed his way to the top and (mostly) stayed there.

It had never been an willing partnership. Saving the brute's life had been a mistake, in more ways than one --

\-- the stress and the wine were starting to feel cumulative, which meant he could _smell the floor polish and the trenches and_ he carefully put the cup down and counted to ten. The city glowed. The night was calm. He was alone, with only his thoughts for company.

Normally, that would be a more than acceptable state of affairs, especially after the string of sub-par conversations that he'd been subjected to today -- but there had been an hour, just one blessed slice of ease in this otherwise hellish day when there had been nothing to do but charm and be charmed. 

Barbara Lake. Unusual woman. Lightning in her bones.

She'd been so _silent_ in the grocery store, so self-contained. Barely holding it together - well, given the state of her marriage, small wonder. And her countenance had split the difference between panicked and procedural when they'd met again, and now -- flowing words, banter and warmth and wry smiles. Strange to think these women were all the same person -- but then again, not that strange.

"'Suddenly holy Janus in marvelous two-headed form / Thrust his binary face before my eyes.'" Walter smiled ruefully. "'Clutching a staff in his right hand, a key in his left . . '"


	2. coenulus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Walter Strickler has many charges, some more exasperating than others.

_2006_

_teatime_

In the old times before the sundering, Changelings had been somewhat rare. Their original function was giving the Gumm-Gumms an advantage over other, more scrupulous trolls (i.e., everyone else) as agents sheathed in skin that could withstand the daylight, allowing for greater operational flexibility. It was only after the wars between Gunmar's horde and the rest of trolldom were joined by humans that the Impure were used seriously for espionage and infiltration, and the shapeshifters were forced to integrate more thoughtfully into the ranks of mankind. 

As such, the troll Stricklander had tried his hand at numerous occupations over the years. Among other things, he'd been a mercenary, a clerk, an assassin, a valet, a furrier, a horse-buyer, a cartographer, a monk, an engraver, a courtier, an apothecary, an Inquisitor, a banker, an antiquities dealer, a reporter, and -- once -- a duke. Very briefly. 

And yet, the role he seemed to return to the most often was that of teacher, though he would be hard pressed to say exactly why. Granted, it had usually been in the capacity of a household tutor, and never for terribly long, given that the demands of his greater work meant it was rare for him to remain anywhere for more than a year or so. This current stint in Arcadia was an outlier, but for good reason: he was one of the few Changelings who could safely afford to remain in the area without the fear of recognition.

He had made a point of infusing as much of himself into the operational parameters of the Janus Order as it would tolerate while burnishing his reputation as a leader in Gunmar's eyes -- well, eye -- but when it came to the opposition, Stricklander was less than a ghost, his name appearing nowhere in the chronicles of those few raided caverns that the Gumm-Gumm remnant had managed to breach. 

This was an excellent state of affairs. There would be a day when his exploits would be writ large in the annals of history, but until then, he was content to plot, and wait, and teach, and watch the local activity around the Trollmarket entrance. He had done so now for seven years. 

And it had been a surprisingly agreeable seven years. In spite of being a troll by origin, Northern European by adoption (or abduction), and British by inertia, Walter was enjoying the profound bright warmth of California more than almost anywhere else he'd ever been stationed. There was virtually no weather. The wine was plentiful. The children of this district were obnoxious but eager to please. The principal was easily cowed, the superintendent a non-entity. The trolls here were oblivious or idiots or both and their Trollhunter spent most of his time far afield. 

And now there was a restaurant that actually understood the merit of a good brew-up, and even an occasional someone to share the pot with. Paradise.

"No more for me, thanks," Barbara said absently, leafing through her notes. "Wired enough as is."

"As you like." He poured the dregs into his cup and debated whether or not to order a fresh pot. Barbara's last load at the laundromat was nearly finished, after all. "I might be done, myself."

Her eyes flicked up momentarily. "I honestly don't know how you aren't vibrating, Walter."

"If I correctly understand the nature of particles, we're all vibrating."

"Three pots," she countered. "I only had, what? An eighth of all that? How are you not floating?"

"I have an innate advantage," he said cheerfully. "An iron constitution." There was some ferrous material in his matrix, at any rate. "I expect you'll want to be checking on your laundry?"

She glanced at her wristwatch and sighed. "Drat. Yes. Ugh, where does the time go . . ." 

" _Tempus fugit_ , good Atlas."

"Tempus fudge-it." He'd come to regard her extreme aversion to cursing as rather amusing. "Didn't I just cycle it, like, two minutes ago?"

Walter tapped the pile of papers he had been grading. "You said when I started this."

"You're fast, though. And caffeinated." Barbara lunged for the check; he beat her to it. "And one of these days, you're going to have to let me win. You can't afford to keep treating." She grinned. "Not on a teacher's salary, anyway."

"You wound me, madam." He shuffled the last of the graded tests into his briefcase, reflexively checking to make sure his keypen was safely tucked away in his jacket. "Considering how your occasional partaking of my tea staves off the shame of consuming so much in one sitting, how could I not pay for such a valuable service?" He downed the last of his cup with exaggerated relish.

Barbara snorted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "You really should ramp that down, though. You're what, forty-two?"

"Thirty-nine, thank you very much."

"Wait. Seriously?" She paused mid-tuck. "I thought you were older -- oh, crud. Sorry. Sorry, I did _not_ mean it like that -- "

"I've been told I was born middle-aged." He draped a hand across his brow. "Alas! I always assumed they merely referred to my temperament; henceforth shall I be known as Walter of the Woeful Visage, his face and form blighted prematurely by the spiteful blade of Kronos -- "

"Uh, no, I just meant you act -- "

"Infirm? Senescent? Sere and feeble?" She had a point; he was over-caffinated.

"Oh, now you're just enjoying this way too much." Barbara swung her satchel onto her shoulder, knocking over her chair; he caught it just in time. "Whoops. Thanks."

He righted it, smirking. "Not bad for an old man?"

She flicked a piece of lint off her sleeve, eyes narrowing in feigned irritation. "I didn't say you were _old_ , I just meant that hypertension is totally a real thing and you're knocking on its door." 

Walter fell into step beside her as they crossed the street. "Preposterous."

"Ask me. Ask me how I know that hypertension is a problem."

"Well, given the tenor of your stories from the ER," he lowered his voice to a discreet murmur, "I must assume that hypertension is comorbid with foreign objects lodged in one's-- "

" _Don't_!" Barbara half-shrieked, half-giggled. "You're awful, Walt."

"I am that, yes." He held open the door of the laundromat. "God only knows why they let me teach."

 

_talk time_

 

Walter Strickler massaged his aching temples and desperately wondered what gods he had offended to deserve _this_.

The conference call was disintegrating again. Visually, everything was fine; Otto was calling from Germany and the connection was much more stable than when he'd been on assignment. Conversationally, however, it had been nothing but vituperation and panic for forty wretched minutes. 

Three windows were open on his laptop, faces in various guises contorted with strain, and in spite of numerous terse memoranda he'd issued over the years of maintaining human form during all meetings -- even on encrypted channels -- half of them were stone-clad. The audio currently consisted of Nomura and Pyotr (Moscow) talking over each other's reports while Zhenya (also Moscow) accused Otto (Frankfurt) of wrecker activities and the Janus Order's accountant (Lagos) prophesied doom.

"Liquidity," Ade was attempting to yell over the others, "is the biggest issue of our upcoming fiscal year, as the Order doesn't have enough --

" -- we had a system, a good system, and this one comes in and what happens? Informants go missing, and all because she can't -- "

"Half of your informants were informing _on you_ , you pathetic simpleton."

"You honestly think we didn't know that? What Changeling is stupid enough to trust human contacts? I've been here since before the Revolution, girlie, I know a thing or two about -- "

Bular's execution of Korshas and his reassignment of Nomura had sent shockwaves through the Janus Order's hierarchy -- but more critically, it had upended a delicate system of operations that had maintained the Russian division for years, and worse, the missing Bridge components still hadn't been found.

" -- sell stock, of course, but that still leaves us in a precarious situation until -- "

"Call me 'girlie' again and I'll throw your gronk-nuks down the Potemkin Stairs --"

Nomura was a ruthless tracker, but she was out of her element here. Otto's shipping errors made him the next likely target for Bular's ire, so naturally he wasn't in the calmest mood. The Moscow branch of the Order resented Nomura's presence, Korshas's absence, and the logistics of escorting their overlord back to his Siberian exile. Ade had run the numbers on what this debacle was costing them, and -- well, it was fortunate that Walter had grown accustomed to making very little in the way of a salary.

" -- admit it, you filthy Kraut, you were trying to get Andrei killed, you'd always hated him -- "

"-- that's not even here; it's in Odessa, _girlie_ \-- "

"-- going to severely impede future planning if this matter is not soon concluded --"

" -- _halt's Maul, du_ \-- "

Walter gritted his teeth, muted the sound on the speakers, and stalked back out into his human office, rummaging through the drawer he used to store student contraband until he found what he needed. Carefully locking the inner sanctum once more, he unmuted the channel, noting with unsurprised resignation that Nomura had drawn her blades and was advancing on Pyotr, now wielding a broken chair leg. He inhaled, and then aimed the airhorn into the microphone. 

When all sets of eyes -- human and otherwise -- were fixated on him, he smiled. Pleasantly. 

"So. To reiterate and simplify what has been shared on this most enlightening call: Peytr and Zhenya suspect the Bratva or their affiliates to be responsible for the theft of the stones. Nomura believes the culprit is someone Korshas slighted who has ties to a millionaire. In either case, three months after the incident, none of you have determined where the stones have disappeared to, and you are burning through both our informational networks as well our as time and money trying to figure this out." He let his smile grow sharp. "Correct?"

The silence persisted. " _Correct_?"

"Yes, Lord Stricklander," Nomura conceded with effort. 

"Not so hard, is it?" He narrowed his eyes at her until she lowered her gaze, then addressed the others. "You've tallied everything that was taken from Andrei's apartment, of course." Walter leaned back in his chair, twisting the cap on his pen. "By which I mean personal effects, mementos, _objet d'art_ , not just the Bridge components _someone_ mistakenly sent his way." Otto shifted uncomfortably in his frame.

Pyotr coughed. "We -- he didn't have many visitors to his apartment or his shop, I mean, other members of the Order; we did all business at the safe house -- "

"I'm not asking you to provide a critique of the tiling in his bathroom, I'm asking you: what did the thieves remove?" The sudden glare on the laptop screen was yellow from his surfacing anger. "There should have been a list of the shop inventory, did they take that as well? He was insured for every salable antique on display, so have you been going through the enumerated items with the insurers?"

The silence was damning. "Am I to infer that you've just been randomly banging on the doors of every street tough or flouncing parvenu that might have crossed paths with Andrei in the last twenty years? Snouts to the ground like a baying pack of mindless bloodhounds?" He stood up in sudden fury, slamming his palms against the desk; the faces in their assorted windows recoiled as one. "Are we _dogs_?!"

"We're Transport and Logistics," whined Zhenya. "Andrei was Acquisitions, he knew about these sorts of things -- "

"And lacking any native ambition or cunning, you never bothered to learn?"

Pyotr broke in, his honor clearly slighted. "All the things we've smuggled in and out of this country, and no one once suspected -- "

"Oh, no no no, Petya; no. You're not making excuses to me, you're making them to Bular. There are no indispensable Changelings, but keep in mind some are more dispensable than others." He shot Nomura another sharp glare; she seethed. "And now that I've assigned my last piece of homework for tonight, I expect to hear results when we resume this conversation tomorrow. I have a test to prepare." He twisted the cap of his pen particularly viciously. "If your problem-solving skills prove less adept than those of my human charges, rest assured: this will go down on your permanent records."

The windows quickly closed to a chorus of "Until His Return's", with only Otto's remaining open, a look of wan confusion on his unnerving face. "Stricklander?"

He sighed. This office had become intolerable to his jangling nerves, and he needed to be anywhere else, anywhere there was sun, anywhere there wasn't the shadow of failure. In deference to centuries of something vaguely adjacent to friendship, he remained. "What, Otto?"

The other Changeling pointed at the front of Walter's jacket. " _Was mit der Socke ist_?"

 

_light time_

 

A small face looked up at him, suspiciously. "Hi?"

"Hullo. Is your mother in?"

"Yeah." The door did not open. "Who are you?"

Walter was mildly disappointed that Jim had not recognized him, but given that their last encounter had been nearly a year ago it seemed unlikely he would have. "My name is Walter. I'm . . . an acquaintance of your mother's."

"What's a akwaintence?"

"A . . . friend you don't know terribly well." Walter had never bothered to label his association with Barbara Lake; they sometimes shared a table and drank tea together -- usually Thursdays -- when her erratic schedule allowed her to get the laundry done. Presumably that fell under the rubric of friendship? 

The uncertainty in his voice clearly did not convince the five-year-old, who squinted at him in renewed distrust. The door closed, and small footfalls could be heard thudding back into the distance, with a plaintive "Mom?" faintly audible.

Moments later, Jim returned. "She says you can come in."

"Thank you."

"She says your name is Walt."

"It's short for Walter, yes."

"Walter's a old person name," the boy said, manner-of-factly.

"I'm very old, as I told you once before." Walter glanced around the living room: toys on the floor, crocheted blankets on the furniture, medical journals on the table. A charming enough place for three generations of a family, if small. 

"I don't remember."

"You helped me with my shopping. Remember? It was just before your birthday."

The boy abruptly seemed to lose interest in the conversation, running over to his mother's side. She was in the middle of changing a light bulb in the kitchen's ceiling fan -- or trying to, at any rate. Jim was currently stabilizing the foot of the ladder. "Walt! Hey!"

"Do you want some assistance with that?" He winced as she swayed to the left and Jim (with unusual foresight for a child) frantically redistributed his weight to the lower rungs. He lunged forward to steady the other side of the ladder and caught the boy's expression of mixed resentment and gratitude.

"Ugh, it's stuck. Now I know why Gran-Gran never changes this thing." It was odd seeing Barbara out of her scrubs, though interesting that something of the focused concentration she exuded in them still lingered. "I swear . . ."

Walter glanced up at the fixture, noting that the bulb in it was easily several decades old. Apparently, it had been a lost cause for some time. "Let me have a look? I'm quite handy with unscrewing things." 

"Mom can do it," Jim said loyally.

"I think I just need a break." She sighed, leaning down on the ladder until she was eye-level with Walter; a novel experience. "So what brings you around here? Sorry for the mess," she added, suddenly abashed. "Gran-G -- my grandmother is in Sacramento for the weekend, and -- I mean, not that it's her job to keep the place clean, you know, but -- "

"You're apologizing to a lifelong bachelor?" He removed the errant sock (red, child-sized, emblazoned with GUN ROBOT in yellow letters) from his jacket pocket. "In any case, static cling has brought me to your doorstep tonight. It does seem like a substantial portion of our meetings are predicated on accidental theft, doesn't it?"

"That's mine!" Jim sounded scandalized. "Why's he got my sock?"

"Walt helps me with the laundry, sometimes." Barbara glanced down at her son and tousled his hair with a fondness that warmed something in Walter's silicates. "Calm down, goofball."

"I'm not a goof; you're a goof." Walt handed the sock to the boy, who gave him another suspicious look. "Why does his voice sound funny?"

"Jim, that's rude!"

"Sorry." Jim turned back to Walter. "Why does your voice sound funny?"

"I'm a troll wearing human skin," he deadpanned. "Flattens out one's timbre."

"Walter is from another country," Barbara said pointedly, hopping off the ladder and knocking a screwdriver off the countertop; he reflexively caught it in midair. "You know? Like how Claire's family comes from Mexico?"

Jim glanced at Walter with renewed interest. "You're from Mexico?"

"Guildford, actually --"

"Sorry," Barbara interrupted. "I guess I always assumed you were from another country; you could just be Canadian."

He passed the screwdriver back to her. "Barring any alarming new developments in U.S. foreign policy, Ms. Lake, I believe that Canada is also considered a separate country?"

Barbara pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's right. You can tell I grew up in Seattle, huh?" She grinned. "Maybe I've spent too much time on this ladder."

"But, yes: British, more or less." He leaned back against the counter, surveying the intractable lighting. "We came over with the Normans." He had, at any rate.

"I can count to twenty," Jim said, clearly bored with the subject. "One, two, three, four -- "

A phone rang from somewhere in the main rooms and Barbara rolled her eyes. "Excuse me for a moment. Gran-Gr-- my grandmother probably wants to make sure we're eating regularly." She tousled Jim's hair as she passed. "Jim, did you know Walt's a teacher?"

Jim stopped counting, giving the departing form of his mother a panicked look. "What?"

"It's true," Walter admitted. "Are you in school, yet?"

"Yes," the boy said guardedly, as though he'd been abandoned with a tiger. Teachers were apparently still a terrifying prospect at his age.

"Ah. I assumed you would be, since you can read and count so well." He straightened up, folding his arms behind his back. "Can you _really_ go all the way to twenty?"

A hint of pride glinted in Jim's eyes. "Yeah."

He did, and then Walter introduced the concept of thirty, which was alienating and upsetting to the mind of a five-year-old but also intriguing, prompting several attempts to count all the way there, with twenty-seven being the point where things broke down. Somehow, he found himself writing down the numbers for Jim on a piece of paper just to prove they weren't made-up. Walter had never been a child -- not really -- and subsequently he found the mysteries of that condition almost as fascinating as Jim found the concept of numbers.

Thus engaged, it took him several moments to register that Barbara's voice had grown sharp, clipped, commanding; the sound of the phone being returned to its cradle and a series of buttons being pushed furthered Walter's growing concern. "Nikki? Hi. This is Barb Lake -- hi. Yeah, I am _so_ sorry -- is it possible you can come babysit for Jim right now? I know it's a school night. Double the normal rate. Okay -- okay. Thanks. I have to -- " Her head appeared around the side of the door and she exaggeratedly pantomimed for Walter to join her -- "I have to check something super quick -- "

"Trouble?" he enquired, in the lowest tone he could manage. Her eyes were like polished steel.

" _Huge_ problem in the ER. Major accident; they need all hands on deck. Walt, I am so, so sorry -- the babysitter is going to take a minute to arrive and I have to get there _now_ \-- "

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I'll wait until she's here. Just go."

She grabbed and squeezed them in a quick moment of intense gratitude, her eyes still so sharp, so kind. "Nikki? I have a friend who stopped by; he's going to stay with Jim until you get here. Right. Thank you so much." She hung up the phone. "Jim? Honey? Mom has to help at the hospital, so Nikki's coming over in a few minutes and she'll make you dinner, okay? And Walter's going to wait here with you for Nikki."

The boy looked up from the table where he'd been scribbling numbers, his face stricken. "Mom?"

She enfolded him in a quick embrace. "I know, baby. I love you so, so much. Can you be my brave helper?"

And she was gone, out the door, satchel in hand, barking instructions to be relayed to the babysitter, apologies to Walter, love to Jim. In spite of the curb, the hose, the abandoned soda can on the sidewalk, she made it to the car as though she -- well. As though she were not Barbara Lake, that profoundly accident-prone human being; as though there was no universe in which these trifles could ever possibly intersect with her path.

Or, conversely, as if she were Barbara Lake, shorn of all failings, sharpened so fine that she could sever any threads of probability that dragged obstacles into her way.

"She's meant to do this," Walter murmured to himself in faint surprise, watching the station wagon peel out of the cul-de-sac and expertly avoid the recycling bins. "Remarkable." He glanced over at the boy, still sitting silently and staring down at the paper that had, until recently, been the most interesting thing imaginable. Somewhere in the distance, sirens.

Whatever Walter could remember of his own childhood -- such as it was -- allowed him just enough insight into the minds of young humans that he knew the importance of a good distraction; luckily, a course of action suggested itself. He took off his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his jumper, and headed back towards the ladder. It was rickety, but he'd climbed walls and mantled rooves in other lives; this was comparatively sturdy. His arms were longer than Barbara's, and as such he could grasp the recalcitrant bulb with only modest difficulty. "Jim, could you see if there's a potato?"

"A what?"

"A potato. In the refrigerator?"

"Why?"

"Well, if you find one, I can show you." A moment of search yielded a russet potato that was nearly starting to sprout. "Hmm. Well, I've worked with worse. Stand back." 

Jim yelped as the glass broke. "Mom said not to turn it, you'll get cut!"

"I'm a tough old goat," Walter retorted, dropping the bulb shards into the sink before cutting the potato in half with the edge of the nearest screwdriver. He pressed it against the jagged edge of the bulb and twisted. "Now . . . ah. The eyes have it!"

Whatever fears lurked in the imagination of a young boy, the act of watching an allegedly-responsible teacher trying to use a vegetable to unscrew a lightbulb was clearly the _ne plus ultra_ of comedy, surpassed only by the revelation that it actually worked. "I wanna try! Can we do another one?"

"Jim, that's just for stuck bulbs." Walter began screwing in the replacement. "But, do remember that for next time. The trick, you see," he expounded, setting the potato on the top rung and casting around for the screws for the light cover, "is that force rarely works to disengage something entrenched, whereas a soft touch allows for greater traction. A seeming contradiction, I admit, but -- you're not there, are you."

Sure enough, Walter could hear small footsteps thudding on the floor above him. Another siren sounded in the distance, and he found himself growing strangely uneasy as he squinted in annoyance at the old, rusted threads of the fan casing and attempted to wedge the glass back into place. 

The boy had re-materialized the bottom of the ladder with a severe expression, ointment, and Band-Aids. "You gotta wash your hands." The bandages had Gun Robot on them.

"It's a very small cut -- "

"You gotta wash your hands and put the stuff on or you get infessions." The fierce blue expression intensified under the mop of black hair. "Mom. Says."

Thus were the flesh wounds of Walter Strickler's mortal frame expertly attended to by a preschooler. "I don't think I need quite so many, Jim."

The boy shrugged, evidently pleased with his handiwork. "Can I go on the ladder?"

"Would your mother let you?"

"Yes."

" _Really_?" Jim avoided his stare. "Then I think we'd best clean this up for her. Why don't you turn on the light switch?" He kept his tone bright and jovial to disguise the sound of yet another siren, this one even closer. "Your babysitter will be here soon." He glanced at the clock and noted with some dismay that it had already been fifteen minutes. 

Another thirty minutes later, the situation had not improved. Walter hit redial on the phone but got the answering machine, which confirmed he'd reached the Halbergs, and would he like to leave a message?

"This is for Nikki. Hello? It's your World History teacher, Mr. Strickler; unusual circumstances, I know. I'm actually at the Lake Residence at the moment -- Barbara, that is, Ms. Lake did leave me with the impression that you were going to be over at any moment, and that was nearly an hour ago, so if anything has changed -- "

He caught sight of Jim clambering onto the counter and instinctively slammed the phone down. "Inappropriate, young man."

"I'm hungry," the boy asserted, pulling open the cupboards. "Is Nikki gonna be here?"

"Hopefully." Walter glanced through the cupboards and reeled: a box of cereal, five separate open containers of baking soda, a jar of chocolate spread, and salt. If this was the normal state of things, small wonder that grandmothers had to call and make sure food was being eaten. "Good grief. Does no one cook in this household?"

"I do," Jim retorted, shoveling a handful of cereal into his mouth. "I'm a good cook."

Walter opened the refrigerator and boggled. He was, as previously remarked-upon, a lifelong bachelor, and frequently one positioned well enough that he had people to worry about the state of his larder for him -- but this was existentially terrifying. Unmarked plastic containers lurked on ancient shelves, mysterious as cinerary urns. "What on earth do you people _eat_?" 

"Eggs." Jim sprayed some cereal as he spoke. "Sammiches."

"What's in this -- " He opened an unmarked Tupperware container and yelped. "Is that tuna? Please, that must be --"

"I don't like box stuff." Jim's voice lowered conspiratorially. "Mom doesn't like cooking."

"Evidently." Another container yielded . . . something with corn. "I assume your grandmother handles that part of the equation?" There was a gelatinous substance wiggling coquettishly in an uncovered dish. Possibly, it was congealed fat. 

"Gran-Gran makes good noodles." The box of cereal was returned to the counter. "Can I go watch my show?"

Walter nodded assent, frowning perplexedly at what seemed to be broccoli in cream sauce. It might have been a vegetarian attempt at chicken divan; the miasma coming from the tuna was polluting his senses. There was a certain irony in having such a refined palate that he couldn't relish the stench of what a normal troll would doubtless devour with little hesitation. "Like someone strained the sewers of fourteenth-century Brussels through a thousand church basements," he muttered to himself, and opened the sliding pane windows of the kitchen to broach the subject of pizza.

What he saw stopped him. Jim was sprawled out on the living room floor in front of the television, but rather than something animated or otherwise Gun Robot-affiliated, he was watching a woman awkwardly if endearingly extolling the versatility of potatoes.

"'The French Chef'?" Walter said in disbelief. " _This_ is your show?"

"Julia knows everything about cooking," Jim replied manner-of-factly, feet kicking in the air behind him. "One time she cooked a lobster and it was alive. I saw it."

"This . . . this is from the fifties, you know." He glanced at the station identifier; public television. "I'm surprised you -- "

"Shh!" And thus shushed, Walter proceeded to glean from Ms. Child just what could be done with root vegetables, as the babysitter remained absent and Jim soaked in the glow of a black-and-white world where friendly, flustered women confided culinary mysteries to harried housewives and small boys. 

"Potatoes are strange creatures," she remarked, and Jim turned back to see if Walter had also heard this, his blue eyes wide with delight.

 

_bedtime_

 

He'd made them Potatoes Anna, or at least the closest facsimile that could be banged up from what was in the Lake pantry. It had turned out surprisingly well, even with Jim insisting that he should get to cut the potatoes. Against Walter's better judgement, he'd let the boy handle the knife.

Against all odds, the boy hadn't cut himself once. The slices were _perfect_. There were adult humans that didn't have that level of fine motor control; how had a mere child managed this? He'd complemented Jim on his skills with a blade, although given how the rest of the evening would consist of Jim running around the house with a wooden spoon pretending to stab evil robots, that probably hadn't been a prudent thing to say. 

To avoid excess conversation, they ate in front of the television (Walter had Opinions about this sort of thing and suspected Barbara would agree, but current circumstances were unusual). It involved some channel-flipping, with Walter carefully speeding over the local stations reporting on something with lots of flashing lights and close-ups of harried faces. 

Cartoons ensued. Walter did not enjoy Gun Robot, though Jim's enjoyment of Gun Robot was comparatively amusing to behold, at least until the spoon incident. It was now eight-thirty and the babysitter was definitely not coming. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for bed? I expect it's long past your bedtime," Walter remarked as he washed their dishes.

"I get to stay up until Mom comes home," Jim explained, balancing on the back of the couch before power-diving onto the ottoman. 

"I sincerely doubt that." Several of Walter's gratuitous bandages were in danger of disappearing down the drain; he couldn't even remember where he'd actually been cut.

"Yuh-huh." The ottoman skidded across the floor.

"Cartoons must be over by nine, in any case." _Hopefully_ , he did not add. "Your mother will be terribly cross with me if I don't get you to sleep at a reasonable hour." Inspiration struck. "And she'll have had a very hard time tonight."

There was something genuinely disturbing in how susceptible a five-year-old was to this kind of guilt, but Walter played to win. Sulkily, Jim turned off the television and stomped upstairs, only deigning to acknowledge Walter again when he needed help unscrewing the toothpaste cap.

There were only two bedrooms on the second floor, the first of which was evidently still in use by Gran-Gran. Jim's teal-blue room had a bed and a cot; the bed piled high with stuffed animals, the cot with medical textbooks. "I want a story," Jim declared, wriggling into the bedclothes.

Walter sighed, surveying the books scattered on the ground. "Very well. Would you like to hear The Velveteen Rabbit?"

"No, Mom reads me that one."

"Rescue Dog Adventure Team?"

"No."

"Praxis of Endocardial -- no, I think that's your mother's." He glanced at the title under it. "Snowboard Squad?"

"My dad is gonna read it to me," Jim said defiantly, though his fingers pulled nervously at the edges of his comforter. "He _said._ "

Walter pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jim, I'm not going to suggest every book in the house. Is there a particular story you want?"

"Yeah," was the mulish response. "I just don't know what it is." 

"Reader's choice, then. I'm going to tell you the oldest story humans remember -- or, at least the oldest one they managed to get written down." Walter sat down on the cot across from Jim, wincing as something poked him in the buttock; a toy car. He set it aside. "The story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk."

"What's Uruk?"

"A city. A great city. One of the first cities, and home to Inanna."

"What's -- "

"The goddess of love and war." Walter straightened his posture, drawing in breath and closing his eyes dramatically; these minor theatrics tended to stall a child's questions. "And thus runs the tale: _He ordered built the walls of Uruk the Sheepfold, the walls of holy Inanna, spotless sanctuary, observe its walls_ . . . "

And in fits and spurts, little by little, the old epic emerged. Granted, there was an interruption every other minute, and some parts had to be drastically altered -- 

"What's a harlot?"

"A -- kind of cook. A woman who is a cook. A very good cook."

"Oh, like Julia."

Walter somehow managed to turn his hysterical laughter into a protracted cough. "Something like that, yes." He wiped a tear from his eye. "Er. And Enkidu was so smitten with her excellent . . . _cuisine_ , that he realized the importance of going to Uruk and seeing what society had to offer."

"And he's gonna fight Gil - Gilarmesh?"

"Gilgamesh, yes."

"Except his mom said they're gonna be friends."

"Yes, that too."

And the heroes met, fought, and became bosom companions, and Uruk gloried in their majesty, and together they set out and destroyed Humbaba (a monstrous black beast with embers for eyes and Bular's lack of social graces in this telling; Jim was enthralled by the voice), and they tore the Bull of Heaven apart after Inanna set it against the duo for their impiety (Walter left out some specifics).

The boy's eyes slowly started to droop, but he was still awake just as Walter was attempting to conclude the adventure. "And then what did they do?"

"Well . . . " He considered a decorous fabrication, but this story was oddly difficult to append for some reason. "Things get rather sad for our heroes after that."

"Do they stop being friends?"

"No, but Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh grieves for him for the rest of his life."

"He doesn't save him?"

"I'm afraid not."

Jim's sleepy eyes grew sober. "When Gun Robot got blowed up, Pilot X saved his brain 'cos he was a computer and they made him into a new Gun Robot."

Despite his various ecclesiastical stints, Walter had never cared much for metaphysics and did not want this to turn into a conversation on the nature of death -- not tonight, and not with a child whose mother was trying to ward it off. "That sounds awfully reassuring."

"Toby from across the street doesn't have a mom or dad anymore." Small fingers gripped the edge of the bed for just a brief moment; white knuckles. "There was a accident."

"Poor Toby."

Jim nuzzled the side of his pillow. "Does Enkidu die 'cos of a monster?"

"Not exactly." Walter shifted on the cot. "Fate. Humbaba levied the curse against them, if you remember, and the gods upheld it, so he went to the Darklands -- the dark land, rather, of shadows and dust."

"And Gilgarmesh went down and pulled him out," Jim mumbled stubbornly. "He did."

"He did," conceded Walter, finding a narrative compromise at last. "Though the way was long and perilous. He outran the sun and battled giant creatures with the bodies of scorpions, and there was a river almost too terrible to cross, and a wise man who had seen the first world end was the one to tell him how his friend could be saved, but that the cost would be high . . ."

Jim's eyes hadn't opened for several moments at this point, so Walter pitched his voice lower still to keep the boy moving towards sleep: ". . . and that cost was that Gilgamesh could never return to his beautiful city, his city of clay and writing, of laws and language, Uruk of the strong threshold. For the gods decreed that the price for Enkidu to live was that Gilgamesh must become a beast in the wild, and Enkidu would not allow this to befall his friend, for, having tasted all that was good of cities and civilization, he knew that humans cannot live as animals once they have learned what is best in life. He gave his place in the light to a snake, begged Gilgamesh to forgive him, and sunk back beneath the dark of the world . . ."

Jim seemed to be asleep. Walter, suspecting a ruse, waited for several seconds before declaring victory, but was alarmed to realize just how tired he was as well. It had been years since he'd been left in charge of a child, and only then as a tutor -- clearly the cooks and nursemaids of his previous places of employment were deserving of much more credit than he'd ever given them. 

" . . . _and thus ends the tale. Glory to the memory of the walls of the Sheepfold, Uruk, first of cities_." 

The specter of the still-ungraded papers and tomorrow's quiz loomed large in his thoughts, but with any luck Barbara would be home soon. Whatever was happening out there in the world couldn't be that bad? Surely he could lean back against the wall and close his eyes for just a moment; after all the tea he'd had earlier, it wasn't as though he was 

 

_breakfast time_

_pulsing, hungry, the Changeling cohort swarmed around the cities of Mankind in a black cloud, snatching fragments of the clay walls and turning them into rocks which were in turn stolen by unseen foes. a child ran gracelessly around the ruins of an un-rememberable place, a huge shadow with flaming eyes watching with predatory menace as it played. then more running, as he was decanted into the form of something wild and hoary that kept the company of beasts (did he have his own horns? good, he did) and there was a goddess cloaked in fire and armor, blue and red, sharp and shining, but as he readied for the attack she unclasped her girdle_

Human. Rank. Child-smell, milky and sweet-sour. Even closer, though, the faint scent of floral shampoo overlaid with harsh antiseptics, and a . . . woman?

Stricklander opened his eyes to blue walls and a poster of an astronaut smeared with a slant of morning light. This was not a normal state of affairs, and he blinked repeatedly in an attempt to reboot his thought process. 

An empty bed with tousled sheets was directly across from him. Gingerly, he raised his body from the cot -- Barbara's cot -- and winced. Had he actually slept here all through the night? He'd come up to put Jim to bed, mangled the Epic of Gilgamesh, and then . . .

His watch indicated it was nearly seven, allowing him a sigh of relief; his first class wasn't until nine. It occurred to him that the best course of action was determining what had happened to the senior and junior branches of the Lake Family, at least after morning ablutions. 

The man in the mirror was as he had always been, more or less. He'd worn multiple permutations of this face long enough that all its minute changes from age were as welcome as the shifting seasons when they started to reappear: the black hair slowly fading to slate-grey, the faint hollowing of the cheeks, the creases around the eyes. This body aged well, other than how the hair always started going white by fifty.

Unfortunately, the same hair -- in its current configuration -- was a mess. A few cursory passes with a comb by the sink (auburn hair caught in its teeth) did little to shape his comb-over into a recognizable shape, so -- on the subject of recognizable shapes -- 

When the green light subsided, the troll in the mirror was as he had also always been, although his years were cumulative and could not be rolled back as circumstances demanded. Counting to fifteen, he admired the long, elegant curve of his horns, glanced at the door to make sure it was locked, warily eyed the patch of sunlight near the bathtub, and noted that the inside of the medicine cabinet was full of heart medication, pantiliners, Gun Robot-branded bandages, and something tucked behind the milk of magnesium that was emphatically not a balloon. 

Closing the cabinet, he shifted back with a grunt. Mercifully, his quiff had reformed into a more civilized shape, if in need of a wash. This face grew a beard slowly -- side effect of some sort of unbalanced metabolic translation, probably -- so at least he'd still be presentable without a shave.

He paused at the sight of his second self, then -- it was early, he'd been dealing with a child all last night, he was not completely unsentimental -- spat on the glass as decorously as he dared. Another green flare illuminated the room as the figures coalesced: the baby (still a baby, so long and still a baby), pumping his little fists in the air as a goblin leered and gibbered tender nonsense at him. The vision dimmed and was gone.

Walter sighed though his nose. But then, he reprimanded himself sternly, not the worst life; not when spared those parents. "Long since dust," he muttered. "You're welcome." 

Gran-Gr -- Evelyn's room had its door shut. He contemplated knocking, but finally decided to just open it a crack and peek in.

Barbara was sprawled facedown across the length of the full bed, arms outstretched in the manner of a taxidermied albatross. Her scrubs were still on -- well, as far as he could tell. Someone else had clearly tucked a comforter around her and had probably also removed her glasses and neatly placed them on the side table, because she seemed dead to the world. Her breathing was low and heavy and punctuated by fits of mumbling, fingers twitching.

An upwelling of fondness ignited in his ores for this bedraggled creature, shadow self of the flashing woman who had sprung so fearlessly to the rescue of others. "Sleep the sleep of the just, poor Atlas," he murmured, and went downstairs in search of Atlas the Younger. 

"Hi," said Jim to the man who'd ministered to all his needs throughout the course of the previous evening and night. "What's your name, again?"

 _Five_ , he reminded himself. "I'm Walter."

"My mom came home late." The boy solemnly buttered his toast. "I'm making her breakfast."

"I think she's going to be asleep for some time, Jim." He glanced at the clock. "You -- you said you attended school, if I remember correctly? Kindergarden?"

"Yeah." Jim squinted furiously as he evened out the butter on top of the toast. "Gran-Gran takes me." For a moment, he seemed to focus inwardly, attempting to convey concepts beyond his vocabulary and cognitive ability, but then he just pointed at a chart on the refrigerator door Walter vaguely remembered from yesterday. It provided the school's name and address, as well as confirming that Barbara's clinical rotations were insane and that Gran-Gr -- Evelyn enjoyed playing bingo as oft as she could when not picking-up or dropping-off her great-grandson.

"Well," Walter said in resignation, "I hope you can dress yourself, at least."

 

_Dear Barbara --_

_Hope you are feeling rested. Jim wants you to know that he made you toast. Owing to the profound quantities of chocolate spread he garnished it with, I have opted to move it into the refrigerator so as not to attract ants. He wants me to relate that if you take it out and place it in the microwave it will warm up and is very insistent on making sure I write that down._

_I'm afraid that Nikki did not, in fact, show up last night, though presumably you've intuited this by now. We had an otherwise uneventful evening, and now the light over the sink works. I am taking Jim to school (his) -- hopefully there won't be any issues. You have my number if you need me to pick him up._

_Best,  
Walt and JIM LAKEJR_

_P.S. Jim loves you._

_P.P.S. Mrs. Domzalski was very understanding and wants you to know you can park in her driveway whenever you like, but I took the liberty of moving your car all the same. Long night, I know._

_test time_

 

"As I'm sure you are all aware, there were a series of terrible events last night that affected many members of our community. As such, Principal Levit has determined that classes will be over at ten today, and that students may decide for themselves if they wish to remain for the duration of Third Period -- "

It was somewhat insulting how many chairs pulled back in unison, bags hurriedly swinging over shoulders as though their owners suspected Walter would issue a countermand to the principal's edict and wanted to be out the door before he had a chance. "Counselors are being made available in the gymnasium," he managed; very little of his departing class's behavior indicated that grieving or self-reflection was slated for the rest of the morning.

To his additional annoyance, several students had remained behind -- no one directly affected, just a smattering of the usual offenders. Those who harbored some form of childish infatuation towards him, those who were sufficiently straitlaced that the notion of leaving school prematurely was inconceivable, those who lived in fear of whoever was lurking by the school exits, those who would never go home if they could help it. Added to this motley assortment was Nikki Halberg -- who fit in none of these categories, as far as he knew -- but sat in her usual spot by the window, where she and Julie McNeil would spend all of World History passing notes and failing to develop any meaningful appreciation of the military support that France provided for the medieval Papacy. Julie, he noted, had not been present this morning. The mood in the classroom was trending towards the damp.

"Well," Walter said as lightly as he dared given the circumstances, "as I can't in good conscience issue a half-finished test regarding the Fourth Crusade with most of this class gone, perhaps I can quiz this venerable assemblage on a different topic." He crossed to the blackboard, writing GUN ROBOT in bold capital letters (he still had a scrivener's flourish, all these years later) and underlined it twice. "What on _earth_ is this all about?"

There was an initial silence as a gaggle of teenagers attempted to betray nothing that would out them as uncool, before remembering that they would not still be in his classroom if that wasn't already the case. And oh, what Walter learned, and oh, what loud renditions of various theme songs of different incarnations of the show, and oh, what heated disputes regarding the merits of the original cartoon versus the reboot versus the live-action movie, and oh, people had started fistfights in the streets of Byzantium over the nature of God the Son and clearly that impulse was innate to humanity and only found new forms as the ages progressed, and oh, there was something called 'fan fiction' and it sounded appalling. 

"No, I'm not taking recommendations, but thank you, Ms. Delisle," he responded, stepping back from the blackboard that was now covered in chalk and drawings and speculation about how Season 4 would have ended if the production company hadn't gone under. "Well. I appreciate the time you've all taken to enlighten me as to the inner workings of modern myth; I never knew you all had so many . . . _opinions_. And I'm grateful, truly." Walter bestowed a rare smile on his pupils; heads ducked and grins were fitfully suppressed. "I'm afraid that will be all for today, however. Enjoy your temporary reprieve from the test, but rest assured that it'll be ready on Monday. If any of you want to read ahead, it's pages 124 to 137 in your textbook, and skip page 131; the man's an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about." He paused, glancing at his flock with a momentary pang of concern. "Do take care of yourselves. Ms. Halberg? A word."

She slunk up to his desk as the others shuffled out, her expression defiant, though her eyes were rimmed with red. "Is this about Jimmy? Because I don't care. Stuff came up."

Walter quelled a spark of irritation, leaning against the side of his desk. "We made do, if that's what you mean. I was rather disappointed that you couldn't be bothered to let us know there was a change of plans." He folded his arms. "If I hadn't been there -- "

"Why were you there, anyway?" Nikki retorted, picking the edge of her braces suspiciously.

"I was returning an article of clothing to Ms. Lake -- " 

Nikki's eyes widened, her finger stuck in the wiring. " _Oh my god_. TMI."

"What? No, nothing like -- my point is, I know you were consoling Julie, and that speaks well of you." Sure enough, the girl's face creased ever so slightly with grief. "Her brother was part of the road crew, wasn't he? Michael? I had him in this class just four years ago; it's not an easy thing to hear."

"They said he's gonna be okay," Nikki mumbled, looking down. "I don't know. I just . . ."

Walter -- in accordance with broad personal principles as were allowed to intersect with current teaching guidelines -- laid a hand on her shoulder. "She'll have need of a friend in the days to come. Don't let it overwhelm you, but do what you can as seems best." He quickly retracted the hand. "It's good to have someone on your side. Just remember that other people rely on you, as well."

"Is that all?" Nikki said, a note of suspicion returning to her voice. "What about the test on Monday?" She began to sidle towards the door.

"We'll determine when you and Ms. McNeil should take the test next week; I expect you'll have other matters on your minds this weekend." He waved a pen at her in warning. "Don't think you can crib off the rest of the class, as I'll be shuffling the questions around." 

"Okay, _fine_ , Mr. Strickler." Nikki flounced out, then stuck her head back around the corner. "But, like, for real . . . are you and Barb dating, or whatever?"

"No." He began rummaging in his desk drawer, wondering why he bothered casting his pearls before adolescent swine, and also why his ears felt slightly warm.

"Because she's, like, never said anything about you -- "

He slammed the door shut, palming the earplugs into his trouser pocket. "As I said earlier: everyone needs someone on their side."

 

_travel time_

 

It was a pity, Walter reflected as the airhorn went off yet again, that, in spite of his deeply-held conviction that Changelings as a whole were entitled to the same intrinsic dignity and regard as any other race of trollkind, the individual members of his kith managed to uphold the wisdom of their Gumm-Gumm superiors re: enforced sterility. It could at least be said and believed of mules that they were smarter than horses.

"So," he resumed, calmly removing his earplugs, "you can't crack the encryption on Andrei's computer? I find that a less than compelling excuse, Pyotr."

"I didn't say it was _encrypted_ , just that I haven't found his password list yet." Pyotr rubbed the side of his face, scowling. "Hope he didn't keep _that_ in the shop."

"And I found the insurer's list, but he didn't have any of his personal knick-knacks on it." Nomura folded her arms (human this time, at least) defensively in front of her. "If it was in the shop portion of the building, it was accounted for, but if upstairs, we're out of luck."

"' _We_ '?" Stricklander said, pointedly. She flinched, and Otto let out a nervous giggle, which turned into an awkward cough as the glare migrated from the Moscow window to his. 

"Erm. I was . . . acquainted with some items Korshas was especially fond of, so I thought to see if any were being listed on auction houses or less, heh, savory marketplaces." He stifled another giggle, and Walter managed not to sound the airhorn again only through great restraint. "In case, you see, they have left Moscow -- "

"No." Walter stood, pacing in front of the table, mind whirring. "The stones are somewhere in the city. They may be on display in some _nouveau riche_ curio room, they may be propping up a bench, they may be sunk in a fountain -- but they are in Moscow, if only because the affronted parties still live here, still subcontract their dirty work from locals, and because no one in their right mind is going to pay any degree of money to move three large and slightly odd-looking black rocks anywhere else." He shot a warning glance at Ade, whose hand was meekly beginning to raise. "Besides us; yes, thank you."

Walter stopped pacing, sitting back down. "More to the point, no one who isn't a troll would know what they are or what they signify. Emphasis on 'isn't a troll', as I happen to be aware that the Trollhunter is sorting out some business in Nepal at the moment." He noted with both contempt and a degree of smug satisfaction that the respective expressions of each group seemed to have dropped all at once. "Doubtless that comes as no surprise to my intrepid field agents." He rotated his chair so that its back faced the camera. "And he has a considerably faster method of transportation than we do." Not to mention that no one would be telling Kanjigar the Courageous to check his carry-on luggage. "What is the confirmed number of waybridges in the area?"

"Just three," Zhenya said. "As you say, confirmed."

"And known trolls?"

"F-forty," Pyotr mumbled. 

"Thirty-nine," muttered Nomura. "She -- I didn't know if she saw me, so I couldn't take any chances -- "

Stricklander wheeled the chair back around, slowly. "Really. Well, Ms. Nomura, given your past history with the Trollhunter, we ought to hope that chance is on your side for once." 

"I sunk the body -- "

"Wonderful. Now we just need to worry about reports of statuary spontaneously generating in the Moskva." He ran a hand across his face, cursing the world at large and Bular in particular. One couldn't even levy the accusation of stupidity against the hulking boulder; he was perfectly capable of higher reasoning -- but he had no reason to engage in it as long as he had inferiors to cow into submission. One Impure fails, just kill them, swap in another; leave the headaches to Stricklander.

 _Keep it up, you shambling lump of anthracite. You know what I'm owed._

"There's nothing for it," he said aloud, taking his hand away. "As soon as the Trollhunter returns to Arcadia, we shall convene and try, somehow, to sort through this mess -- Otto, Ade, myself, and the rest of you. It would be lovely to think that a school break would be coming up, but I have an unpleasant suspicion this will run long." 

Ade boggled. "In -- in Moscow? Sir, but our finances --"

"I'll fly coach," Walter snarled, and slammed the laptop shut in a fit of pique.

 

_suppertime_

 

Walter Strickler glanced out at the abandoned school grounds and felt a certain melancholia settle across his shoulders. Insomuch as there was anything immutable of his nature, he had always been a solitary soul -- but what the human world considered 'solitary' had undergone radical changes over the years. In the monasteries, for example, one was always surrounded by one's order (one's human order, at any rate) but perfectly detached in the silence of the mind. At court, you were never alone, even when completely alone. Bachelorhood had frequently involved cohabiting with various fraternities of forsaken men in boarding houses, landladies and charwomen clucking maternally around the periphery of his sight.

Much of his existence, in fact, had been spent this way, but the advent of the twentieth century heralded unexpected changes. You could travel anywhere, disappear into cities and countries as easily as a drop of water in the sea, and almost as quickly. No one demanded that you provided bona fides in the forms of friends or colleagues or relations; you could simply _be_ without fabricating a life history to weigh down the corners of your mask. 

The thought of his apartment waiting for him was oddly unbearable at the moment. It was clean, unassuming, sterile, and utterly his, without compromise. If you cried out in the night, no one would hear you -- and in some respects, that was perfect for the purposes of a creature posing as human. 

Walter glanced at his phone, surprised that Barbara hadn't called. Presumably she would have woken up before it was time to collect Jim? The harried receptionist at the kindergarten had given Walter some grief about not being a designated contact, but given the events of the previous night and a host of other hastily-deputized friends and family dropping off children, he'd been far from the first offender.

He thought of her form spread-eagled on her grandmother's bed, rigid with exhaustion. That feeling of kindling warmth resurfaced for a brief moment for his . . . well, whatever they were to one another, it was certainly more than mere acquaintances, that much was true. It had been some time since he'd had an actual friend, but there it was. 

_Pizza_. He would bring her a pizza. Jim would like that, and they'd be in no state to cook, and maybe there would be some left over in the morning for them to eat. Yes, a considerate offering, and appropriate for a Friday. Possibly he could finagle a slice.

And thus it was, strangely giddy, that he arrived in front of that small blue house a second time, with a large half-cheese and half-vegetarian (he had suspicions about Barbara's tastes) and a bag of Craz-E Stiks (what had induced _that_ , good heavens Stricklander) and rang the doorbell with aplomb. "Hullo, the house! Dinner has arrived -- "

The man from the hospital reception desk opened the door. "The hell?"

Walter froze. The man -- _Brent_ , his mind supplied -- was glaring at him with bloodshot eyes. Behind him on the floor was a duffel bag full of scrubs and a pair of men's sneakers. The sound of children playing -- he heard Jim's voice quite distinctly -- was coming from a back room.

"We didn't order pizza," Brent said again, eyes narrowing. "Wrong house."

Somehow, he regained his voice. "Er -- that is, I brought this by for Barbara and Jim, since she'd had a long night -- "

"We're good here, Mr. --"

"Strickler. Walter Strickler -- "

"Oh, so _you're_ the clown that made off with Jimmy." Brent took a step closer. "Barb had already arranged for me to take him to school, you know. I woke her up just trying to figure out if he was hiding somewhere. She didn't need that."

He bridled under that tone of accusation. "I _did_ leave a note out -- "

"Yeah, we found it. Thanks." 

"Is Barbara -- all right?"

"Yeah, but she's resting. It was a long night for all of us, so maybe lay off the doorbell for a bit." Brent's eyes flicked towards the pizza. "We've already got dinner started. You can keep it."

 

_suppertime (actual)_

 

Walter Strickler ate his pizza and stared out at the city, alone in both body and mind.

Later, the body rebelled. Craz-E Stiks were to blame.


	3. geminus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Walter undergoes a series of terminal conversations, some with music.

_pax intrantibus, salus exeuntibus_

 

Stricklander disliked goblins.

He tried to be discreet about it, of course. It was bad form to openly despise one's inferiors, and without the constant diligence of these beings, the Order's grunt work would never get done. They were reliable, but more importantly, they were consistent. Unlike Changelings, their hierarchy was comparatively stable and didn't involve any byzantine plotting and scheming necessary to stay in favor -- they all loyally reported to one head goblin, who reported to Stricklander. The head goblin was always Fragwa. Fragwa was never the smartest or strongest, just the first goblin to mustachio himself after the previous Fragwa was incinerated, flattened, or pulped. The system wasn't sophisticated, which was why it worked. It was also stupid, but so were goblins, which, again, was why it worked. 

But every so often it would occur to Stricklander -- usually in the hours of existential dread between 2:40 and 4:15 AM, when the mind resides slightly outside and to the left of one's corpus -- that but for the depredations of some nameless goblin all those centuries ago, his life might have taken a radically different turn. 

It was currently 3:08 in the morning, and this feeling was in full effect. It was not helped by a spate of insomnia, nor by the extensive teaching outlines he'd had to prepare for his substitute (which would invariably be Coach Lawrence, owing to the district's stinginess, entailing a session of re-education upon his return), nor by the revelation that the process of flying overseas seemed to have grown substantially more complicated in the past few tumultuous years, nor by the fact that he hadn't -- well -- but _that_ was nothing, he didn't care --

" _Waka chaka_?" 

The actual presence of goblins in his apartment also had something to do with it. 

"No. Put that back." He pointed severely at the sheet of instructions he'd written up detailing airline restrictions on shampoo bottles. "Less than two fluid ounces." Translating these concepts into Gumm-Gumm runic script had taken up the better part of an hour, complicated by the fact that the language had almost no words involving hygiene or small quantities and also by the revelation that most goblins were functionally illiterate. 

Two of his old trunks and several assorted suitcases were being hauled about by the wretched creatures as Walter attempted to figure out the best combination to bring overseas. He sincerely doubted that the missing segments of Killahead Bridge would be recovered in the meager timeframe he'd been granted, but at least he could bring back some of the dearly-departed Korshas's hoard. It would require careful routing, of course. There were Changeling operatives stationed in airport security, but only in select places and he wasn't about to risk another fracas with shipping --

There was a knock on the door. 

Walter's train of thought derailed. For a moment, he stood in stupefaction while the goblins rose as one. Then, retrieving his wits, he waved them into hiding as he sidled to the door, though not before grabbing a butcher's knife from the block on the kitchen counter (it never hurt to take precautions). 

He opened the door quickly, hoping to catch his unknown caller by surprise and thus gain a tactical advantage if this was a setup and at the very least convey that his wasn't a door you knocked on past midnight without repercussions.

"Oh, uh, hi -- "

He slammed it shut in a panic, his briefly-reinstated mental train bursting into flames. What was _she_ doing here at this time of night? 

Well, something muttered anxiously, oughtn't you find that out? He rounded on the confused goblins awaiting his command, gesturing wordlessly to the window; they bobbed their heads and scrabbled to leave. "And quietly!" he hissed.

Barbara looked residually stunned when he reopened the door with a smile he suspected looked rather sickly, befitting the hour. "Er. Good evening, Ms. Lake; to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hi," she managed. He had the distinct impression that his method of answering the door had upset her internal railway system as well. "Um. The phonebook said you lived here, so when I saw your lights on . . ."

This he knew to be a lie -- he was unlisted -- and the subterfuge annoyed him, though he strove to conceal it. "Well. Yes. Here I am."

"Yep." It was appalling. One would think they'd never spoken to each other before. "Are you . . ." Her gaze slipped behind him, doubtless taking in the suitcases and general disarray. "Are you going somewhere? Parents finally running you out of town?"

Something about her tentative jibe was more galling than it should have been. "I've some business to attend to, sadly." He leaned slightly forward, subtly attempting to obscure her view in case Fragwa was still lurking about. He didn't care to explain either of them to the other.

Barbara blinked. "O -- oh. Okay." She jangled her keys. "I guess . . ."

And possibly, he would reflect later, it had been that faltering tone of voice with its badly-concealed worry that prompted what he said next, or maybe it was the realization that he hadn't spoken to anyone unconnected to either of his lines of work for almost two weeks. "My aunt. She's . . . quite ill. And as I'm her closest relative, I should be there for the end."

She placed a hand on the side of his arm; again, that faint current. "What do you need?"

"Oh, nothing. It's all taken care of, here."

"Mail? Packages?"

"I've arranged it all, Barbara." The kettle he'd put on minutes ago started to shriek and Walter similarly began an internal round of cursing. "Excuse me -- " And though monstrous he not infrequently was in thought, word, and deed, every fiber of his being demanded he follow with, "-- would you care to come in? I'm just about to make some tea." He fled back into the recesses of his kitchen, hoping she would . . . what, exactly? Leave? Stay? 

Barbara rattled her keys again. "Oh. I don't know if I should have any caffeine this close to -- well, I was going to say 'bedtime', but my shift's starting soon." She had taken a tentative step over his threshold and was peering about the apartment in interest, which added to Walter's growing irritation, if it was irritation.

"It's herbal. I was just about to start winding down for the night." Don't offer anything else."I do have some stronger stuff if you need to stay in fighting trim, of course." Stop _bantering._

She leaned against his doorframe, arms folded. "The man who calls chamomile tea 'soporific silage' keeps it for sleepytime? Wow, I thought I knew you, Walt."

He gritted his teeth and emitted a faint laugh. "I'm full of surprises. A cup?" Why did you do _that?_

"Thanks, but . . . no. I'd better get going." If it was relief he felt, it was strangely akin to disappointment. "I just, um . . . well. You weren't at the cafe last week, so I wondered if everything was -- is okay."

Walter surreptitiously tried to hide the butcher's knife under the counter, out of her line of sight. "I was preoccupied."

She jangled her keys again. "Did you get my texts?"

He blinked. "Sorry?"

"I texted you a few times, just to see -- " Her brow abruptly furrowed. "Are you upset with me about something?"

The answer was, of course, yes, but he hadn't realized it himself until just now. He gaped like a fish for an awkward moment as the facts rearranged themselves, then countered (perhaps somewhat weakly) with, "I -- my phone isn't set up to receive those, I'm afraid. Texts. School policy; the student body loves nothing more than pranking teachers that way -- " This was blathering, now. "You might've called, if you needed anything," he added, peevish.

"I -- " She unfolded her arms. "I didn't get a chance to really thank you," she said, taking a tentative few steps into his apartment. "For staying with Jim, all that night. I was going to wake you up when I got back, but it was even later than it is right now and I figured you needed the rest, too. I'm really sorry -- _no_. No, Barb, no." She straightened, composing her face into an expression of deliberate clarity. "Stop saying 'sorry' when what you really mean is 'thank you'. _Thank you_ , Walt." That infernal smile snuck across her face again: half shy, half wry. "You were a lifesaver."

Like that Brent person? he did not say. "I'm afraid I was boring poor Jim to death."

"Apparently you made a Julia recipe that was the best thing ever." She chuckled, rubbing the side of her arm. "He loves that show. Makes me wish I cooked."

Walter felt compelled to mention that the boy had skill with blades, but that would lead down a particularly dangerous road of conversation. "He . . . doesn't lack for enthusiasm, your son. I'm flattered that my meager offering rated."

"He said it was better than pizza."

"Good lord. High praise indeed, from the under-six set." His own stomach groaned at the memory of that following night's meal, or more accurately, its aftermath. "He's a good boy, your Jim."

"Well. I like him, but I might be a bit biased." Her smile grew thoughtful, her voice low, gentle. "Hey. I appreciate you stepping in like that. I owe you." She brushed a flyaway out of her face and Walter suppressed the urge to smooth it down _get to bed Stricklander, you're going strange_ \--

"How are you getting to the airport?" 

"Hmm?" Walter blinked. "Oh. Taxi, I expect." A goblin driver, in actual fact.

"You're flying out of LAX?"

"ONT, actually." Walter held up his hands at her raised eyebrows. "Don't ask. It's circuitous but less expensive." One of these hands still had the knife in it, prompting her eyebrows to raise even higher. "Ah. Well." He slid it towards her. "Sorry. Rough neighborhood."

"Thanks for not shanking me, I guess." She glanced down at the knife, then back up to him. "Ontario International's two hours away, though. When's your flight?"

"Tomorrow evening."

"Drat -- I was going to offer to take you, if my schedule agreed." Barbara put her hands on her hips. "What about when you get back?"

"I'm afraid that's still up in the air. Pun largely unintentional." Walter coughed and began to fill his tea strainer with silage. "She's stable for now, but the doctors are saying it won't be long."

"I'm so sorry, Walt."

"Thank you." He was surprised to find that he was genuinely grateful, which was absurd given that he'd invented this entire scenario less than two minutes ago. "It's been weighing on my mind. I was lucky to get the time off."

"Please." There was a hand on his wrist. It was pale and flushed with red from constant washing and inflammation and sanitizing, nails short and neat and slightly grooved. The discoloration from the wedding band was almost completely faded. "If there's anything I can do, let me help. Or at least, let me try."

He slowly looked up, into that face of so many dualities -- young and old and soft and sharp and exuberant and tired -- and, for lack of anything meaningful to say, smiled. 

"Okay?" she prompted, earnest.

"Yes." He patted her hand. "Decent of you."

"Well, just -- just remember to call if you need a ride back," Barbara withdrew her hand -- possibly with just a hint of reluctance -- and straightened. "I better get to work. Wish me luck."

"I always do."

"And have a good flight, and . . . I'll be thinking about you and your family." She backed out slowly, nearly tripping on a suitcase. "Take some zinc supplements with you. And keep hydrated. That's important."

"I'm not in danger of evaporating just yet," he countered, amused in spite of himself. "Best to Jim."

"'Night." That sheepish smile disappeared behind the door and suddenly he wished he'd seen her out; it seemed churlish now that he hadn't. Keys jangled in the hallway once and were gone. 

Walter dipped the strainer into his mug and sighed, surveying his suddenly empty and charmless domain. Fragwa chose this moment to lurch through the window, sniffing around in hostile confusion. 

" _Wagga waka chum chaka_?" he demanded, pointing at the door. 

"Oh, do shut up," Walter suggested, and threw the knife his way.

 

_mater semer certa est_

 

He'd never exactly had a family. 

It was a statement of fact that the first tragedy of his life involved being ripped from someone's arms, but who those arms belonged to was just another lost memory. On the human end of things, his familiar's mother was a young woman married off to an older man to secure an alliance; said older man was still mourning the wife who had given him his first two sons. Theirs was not a warm or loving union, and as its supposed fruit, Stricklander had never received much in the way of affection from either parent, being considered a burden by one and redundant by the other.

Fortunately, he'd been provisioned with an aunt. She was barren, or more accurately, was _considered_ barren; in actual fact, she'd borne a son who lived just long enough to die, and due to the age and general ill-health of her husband, she never managed to conceive again. Bitterness ensued, especially towards her brother's newest wife, who had delivered a child she didn't even bother with half the time.

Thus, she'd taken to poor, overlooked Wallia, and made him small toys that he had to pretend to play with, and had sung tuneless ditties at him, and braided his hair, and taught him to hold a knife (to scrape hide, not to fight). As a young Changeling, he had found her hovering ministrations and unsolicited advice tiresome; now, in the autumn of his life, it was too late to thank her.

He didn't even know where she was buried. _If_ she was buried. That was a sobering thought. 

The Pacific Ocean churned endlessly below him and he watched his breath condense into dragons-breath against the side of the window. How strange all of this would seem to the woman who'd raised him -- but then, she'd always said he was a clever thing who would ride to glory on the backs of eagles. She probably didn't think it would be economy class, though.

He sighed, shifted, tried to sleep, gave up, read parts of his le Carre novel, made notes in the margins, flirted atrociously with the toddler who kept peeking over the seat in front of him, attempted to streamline a series of notes detailing issues that required overhauling in the Order's international operations, and wondered, idly, what Barbara and Jim were doing.

And he dreamt -- fitfully -- of green hills turning golden in summer, and the light slanting in through the windows of his classroom, and the shimmering of Arcadia in its valley by night. Waking up to Moscow in the sleet wasn't fair, but what was?

That sentiment, he upbraided himself, was also not fair; she was an imperial city in her own right, and nothing of her pride had been lost despite some unfortunate periods in Soviet architecture and oh, how he wished he was in St. Petersburg instead. In summer. Without a headache.

Shuffling through Customs and into the airport, jet-lagged and parched (why hadn't he listened to Barbara) and cold, he caught sight of the all too-familiar form of Otto Schaarbach, leering like a silent movie villain and holding a placard saying EARL KING. The nerve.

"You think you're funny, Otto, but it would suit you to remember whose fault this is." 

The other Changeling's face crumpled as he fell into step behind Walter. " _Na klar_ \-- he's dead, though."

Walter gritted his teeth. "Somehow, I doubt our employer would have seen fit to dispense with Andrei's services if it was merely some Sumerian pottery that was stolen from us." He strode towards the baggage reclaim with a particularly clipped gait. "Though presumably Nomura could manage to find _that_."

"It was not I who posted the shipment, my assistant -- "

"And why _not?_ " Walter let his eyes flare; he didn't care if they were in public. "How many years, Otto? How many more slip-ups do you think I'm prepared to manage before Bular's temper gets the better of him?"

Otto's own eyes blazed. "If you had picked up when Andrei called the first time -- "

The insubordination from him, of all people, ignited a fury in Stricklander that threatened to split his skin. "Don't you try to wipe his blood on my back, you crawling toad -- "

"Gentlemen?" Their locked gazes broke, taking in a young security officer. She coughed, nervously. "Is there a problem?"

They stared. Stricklander recovered first. "Ah. Just -- just rehashing the War. As old friends do." He slapped his companion heartily on the back. "But then, we've both come to Russia in winter, so obviously nothing's been learned." Otto laughed, nervously.

She gave them a confused look. "I . . . see. Enjoy your vacation, sirs."

"Oh, it's not a vacation," Walter said darkly, shepherding them towards the conveyer belt. "It's a reunion."

 

_memento mori_

 

Andrei née Andronikos née Korshas had always reminded Stricklander a little too much of himself for comfort. Granted, his late companion had been divorced from any real ambition and possessed far more luxurious tastes than his own (tacky, in other words). He and Walter had shared a deep fondness for the ages and cultural innovations of the human world they had lived through, but while the latter had managed to synthesize it into the pragmatic focus of a historian, Andrei just . . . _collected_. 

There were very strict rules about that sort of thing; Walter had written most of them. Changelings weren't immune to the pleasures of the human world, and more than a few had tried to acquire personal wealth and influence at the expense of the Order's mission, or had set down roots and grown too comfortable to function properly. Andrei's hoarding of antiques was something Walter had pointedly overlooked, on the basis that he could always force him to sell his treasures later if need be. You had to make a few concessions for talent, after all -- though in Andrei's case, it appeared to have engendered a particularly fatal complacency.

He'd never really been a friend -- one did not have friends and achieve rank -- but Andrei and Walter and Otto had spent numerous years as co-conspiritors and accomplices in some particularly inspired instances of archaeology, restoration, and theft. Much of the wealth that the Janus Order managed to accrue in those heady centuries between the Reformation and the French Revolution had come about thanks to their partnership -- the Unholy Trinity, as Andrei once dubbed them.

But Stricklander had greater ambitions, and Otto had gone strange, and now Korshas was dead. 

_Andrei Tretyakov, Antiques and Rare Goods. Appointment Only._

The brass plaque was not original to the building, but had been removed from a different structure almost a hundred years back. Walter had been deposed at the time -- and badly preoccupied -- and it occurred to him now that he'd never really asked how Andrei had managed to keep his hoard safe in the aftermath of Red October. Now, he'd never get the chance.

He and Otto made a cursory sweep of the shop and apartment, Pyotr nervously smoking and watching the entrance. A few oddities, here and there. They spoke in low voices, as though afraid of rousing the ghost of their dead comrade, or re-igniting the sparks of their last argument. 

_He would have kept the gold plate with him, after all the trouble getting out of Constantinople. There should be that statue of the Archangel Michael in the front room. There was a reliquary -- ah, here on the floor; those animals._

"The alarms went off, you say?" Walter asked Pyotr, who nodded grimly. "But no one came to inspect the scene until far too late. Obviously the security company saw fit to look the other way -- "

"I know someone." Pyotr ground out his cigarette. "We're looking into it."

"I should hope so. Nomura is not to get involved in that line of interrogation; she'll give the game away too easily."

Pyotr's expression indicated that he agreed, but his tone was uncertain. "Lord Bular specifically appointed her in charge of the investigation -- "

Stricklander rounded on him. "And Lord Gunmar himself set _me_ over his idiot son when I was reinstated. Never forget that, Petya."

The other Changeling held up his hands in appeasement. "It's not preference, my lord; I just don't -- "

"Enough." He stalked into the bathroom, counted to ten to let the smell of the trenches leave his nostrils, and then looked for the single blue tile on the floor underneath the clawfoot tub, prying it up with a piece of spare wire. The feel of the hinge greeted his fingers and he pulled up.

A simple hatbox, containing an ordinary iron knife with a bit of leather wrapped around the hilt. Andrei, for all his faults, could be entrusted with some secrets. This had been one of Walter's. 

" _Was gibts_?" Otto appeared in the doorway, peering down at where Walter sat contemplating the blade.

" _Gar nichts_ ," he retorted, and grimly closed the lid. "We're done here. Have Pyotr send a goblin for the car."

 

_Salva me ex ore leonis et a cornibus unicornium humilitatem meam_

 

The safehouse for the Moscow division was located in the Yakimanka District, far from Andrei's shop and residence. Everything that belonged to the Order and the reconstruction of Killahead Bridge was there -- not that any of the segments had ever been intended to be housed there, of course; they'd merely kept records of every recovered piece, notes about how and where they'd been recovered, theories as to how they'd gotten about. Most of what was actually stored was loot from the wars against other trolls, or humanity's rare few forays into magic.

Humans, unlike trolls, were barely magical; at the root of the conflict that led to the birth of Gunmar was a certain mutual horror between their races that the other could exist at all. Barring some prodigious and notable exceptions -- like he who had constructed the Amulet of Daylight -- and some subtle, innate ones -- Barbara's spark-hands -- humans simply didn't have the gift. Walter actually respected them more for it; troll engineering was ingenious, but it had peaked long ago, whereas humans kept innovating. It never would have occurred to beings made of silicon to make microchips.

Sadly, when attempting to apply this ingenuity to magic, things tended to go awry, and in this regard the Janus Order and the Trollhunter shared one common goal: concealment. As such, the safehouse often served as a dumping ground for every failed attempt humanity had made towards harnessing the arcane.

"I shouldn't touch that," Walter remarked as Ade's hand hovered over a golden, clockwork scarab. "It bites." The accountant blanched and stepped away. "Well?"

Pyotr tapped a security code into the side of a heavy steel door. "There were some items on the insurer's list that we knew for a fact weren't in the shop, which confused us until we remembered --"

"-- That this was Andrei Ignatievitch, the grubbiest hoarder known to man and troll," grumbled Zhenya, taking a hit from her flask. "So of course he was using the Order's own warehouse for his pretties."

"And that combination? You finally managed to find a password?"

Pyotr sighed. "Hidden in a subdirectory called Oak, in a folder called Iron Chest, in a document called Hare, which had an acrostic telling me to look in his rubber duck, which had one of those plastic eggs in it, which had the code." The sound of heavy bolts releasing rumbled from deep inside the doorframe and the vault swung open. "Too clever by half, our Korshas, and still too dumb to stay alive."

"Well," remarked Walter, ushering Otto in ahead of him in case of traps. "if it's any consolation, everything of worth in here is going to be auctioned off for the war effort. Assuming it's safe." But even as his eyes adjusted to the dark of the room, he suspected this was the case. 

He and Otto spent hours cross-referencing the list, narrowing down what must have been in the shop or the apartment the night of the break-in. Nomura sullenly took dictation as her compatriots moved things about and Ade appraised the value of various paintings, statuary, weaponry, and kitsch. There was, however, a notable outlier.

"So _that's_ the bit of sparkle that caused this whole mess?" Pyotr remarked, sliding a case of jewelry towards Walter and Otto. "Guess he stashed it here to keep the heat off the shop."

The green emerald necklace shimmered beautifully against its velvet backdrop, outshining the other pieces in the case as though it were a diamond in mud. In spite of himself, Walter chuckled.

"Ah, yes. Otto and I ran across this amusing little trinket when we were in service to the Holy Roman Emperor himself." He sighed wistfully. "Dear old Rudolf; so fond of his curiosities. The Janus Order's greatest patron, after Gunmar . . ."

" _Die Kunstkammer_ ," echoed Otto. "They don't make Emperors like that, anymore . . ."

"They don't make emperors, anymore," Nomura retorted, clearly bored.

Walter had already determined that the first one to state the obvious was going to get it, but it surprised him that it was Zhenya who took the bait. "Looks like a . . . perfectly ordinary necklace to me, besides all the jewels, I mean -- "

"Really?" Stricklander smirked, in spite of himself. "Try it on."

She glanced up, suspicious. "But -- it turns you into a werewolf?"

He scoffed. "There are no such things as werewolves." He leaned in. "Fancy a shape-shifter being afraid of that."

Zhenya snorted, and gingerly picked up the necklace, her fingers fumbling with the delicate clasp. Everyone stared expectantly, but nothing happened. She shrugged, and stepped back a few paces, turning around once as though expecting a change.

"Of course, in the very precise sense of the word," Walter remarked, "lycanthropy is a state of mental delusion where one _believes_ oneself to be a wolf, with the corresponding behavioral shifts one would expect." Walter glanced at his watch. "And . . . now."

"What do you mean -- " Zhenya began, then froze as a sickly green light illuminated her retinas. She blinked repeatedly, growing rigid.

"Zhenya? What's -- " Pyotr's solicitations abruptly became a shriek as she lunged at him, snarling and snapping. He bolted to the edge of the vault; she, howling, pursued.

"And that's why humans shouldn't try to make a Grit-Shaka," Walter concluded. "Dear oh dear. Reverse engineering really is more of an art than a science, isn't it?"

"Shame he just didn't try to flog this one," Otto remarked, picking out the necklace's neighbor from the case. "Much prettier. Less defective."

Walter plucked it from the other Changeling's hands. "Ah, yes. I remember this . . . chain's not original to the pendant; he must have replaced it. The cameo was rumored to be carved from unicorn horn, if memory serves."

Nomura leaned in. "Really? Is it?"

"You can't be serious." He glared at her. "There's no such thing as unicorns." 

Otto giggled. "Narwhal ivory." He shot a slippery glance at the other half of the room, where Zhenya had cornered Pyotr. "In those days, of course . . ."

"No, this item has only one, very specific, magical property." Walter let the gold chain fall through his fingers. "It was made to serve as a damping field for a Grit-Shaka."

Nomura glanced behind them, where Zhenya was being held at bay with a mop. "Not doing a very good job, is it."

"The range is limited. Otto, go and fetch my trunk from upstairs, if you please." Walter slipped the necklace into his pocket. "It's time to start divying up the estate. I've a mind to go through those instruments over there; wouldn't put it past Andrei to have laid aside a Stradivarius or two."

"You realize," Nomura said once they were alone, "that -- there is another way we could try to find the responsible parties -- "

"By dangling that necklace in front of them again? Risky. It assumes that they'd still want the thing." Walter nudged what appeared to be a huge red stone gauntlet with his foot; strange tastes, Korshas.

"But -- "

"Are you familiar with the works of Sabine Baring-Gould, Ms. Nomura? _The Book of Were-Wolves?_ A florid but charming collection of folklore related to instances of lycanthropy." He sidestepped the crimson hand and leaned significantly over the countertop. "Would you care to know how much of it exists solely because of that lovely bit of crystal that Zhenya's got about her neck just now?"

Nomura hesitated. "We could try to control it. The nullification field on the unicorn necklace -- "

"No." Stricklander straightened up. "I can't trust you to contain whatever side effects arise from using it as bait. And the Trollhunter _knows_ you, Nomura. You're compromised." He felt a ragged edge seeping into the undertones of his voice but didn't bother smoothing it down. "If he's summoned to the scene of a magical disturbance and spots your tattered hide skulking about, Bular's ire will be the least of our worries."

Her eyes flared. "You're just going to hold that over me for the rest of time, are you?"

"How you _failed_ me? Yes, I should think so." The world flashed green, the whiff of burning ozone in his nostrils as he fell into his second skin. He pointed a taloned finger in her still-human face, which was attempting mightily to remain expressionless and, of course, failing. "I took you on. I let you reap the benefits of my years of spycraft. I built a plan around your supposed abilities, trusted you, and you. Failed. ME."

"Maybe that speaks worse of your judgement than of my abilities," she hissed.

He clenched his fist, fangs bared. "If Bular learned the whole truth of how Kanjigar found you out, you'd be fed your own familiar and staked for the sun to finish off. Don't _test_ me, Nomura. You survive only by my silence, but don't think I won't hesitate to run you through the instant I suspect you're about to ruin everything. I've done away with far more promising protégés than _you_."

Nomura winced, retreating a step, eyes lowered. "I will accept your decision," she replied, trying yet again to toe the line between salvaging her dignity and conveying surrender. 

His point thus made, Walter recollected his human shape. "Consider yourself fortunate that -- unlike the Russian literary tradition -- I have a soft spot for redemption narratives." He glanced behind her at Pyotr, now in troll form himself and desperately trying to keep Zhenya from gnawing his leg off. "Speaking of which, let's attend to Peter and the Wolf."

 

_lacrimae rerum_

 

All the way through the dark over the Atlantic, the thought of Arcadia twisted in his gut.

Walter's flight back involved a layover in New York, necessitating an overnight stay with the local chapter of the Janus Order. His carry-on luggage -- full of undeclared and wondrous treasure -- had safely made it past security thanks to a clever bit of subterfuge from well-positioned agents in both Heathrow and JFK. Owing to the mercurial nature of air travel, of course, his clothes were somewhere in Glasgow. 

(Broadly speaking, his clothes were actually a magically-generated tactile extension of his personal biomorphic field linked to a specific pair of garments back at his apartment, but existentially speaking, that didn't stop you from wanting a clean change of underwear). 

He'd lain on a sub-par mattress and dreamed fitfully of a dull, blackened knife and _the trenches_. It had been in the suitcase with his underwear. He wasn't sure if he wanted it back.

In the middle of the night, haunted by faces, he'd gotten up, staring at the perpetual gleaming mystery of a granite island whose radiance turned the sky above him purple and orange with refracted streetlight. He couldn't help it. 

She picked up in three rings. "Walt?" 

His lips had been oddly dry. "Hullo, Barbara."

"Walt, how are you?"

And the dammed thing was, he'd been ready to pour out all his pique and frustration and melancholy with the whole maddening enterprise for her to hear, only to realize in the nick of time that it wouldn't make the slightest sense. 

"I hope I haven't woken you," he rasped, passing a hand over his face. "It's done."

"You sound rough."

He managed a bitter laugh. "I should be drinking more water and less tea. You were right, my darling." The endearment slipped off his tongue just a little too easily, seemingly from nowhere. "S-- sorry. It's four in the morning here, I'm in an odd state of mind -- "

"No, no, that's fine," she said quickly. "I know the feeling. Are back you in the States?"

"New York. It's charmed me before, but I can't say the same right now." He turned away from the window, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. 

"Hey," she soothed, three hours and two thousand miles away. "Everything all right?"

He wracked his brain for something blandly witty, failed, and sighed. "No. No, not really."

"What was her name?"

He slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "Hmm?"

"Your aunt's."

 _Matasvintha_ , Walter nearly replied before catching himself. "Er. Matilda. Dear Aunt Tillie." 

"You had an Aunt Matilda too, huh? Mine was a sweetheart."

"So was mine." Another face added to the silent mass of the departed behind his eyelids. "I owe her much. More than I ever said."

"Oh, babe --" There was the distinct sound of Barbara yelping and a phone being dropped. "Whoops. Uh. Sorry about that, it's just one in the morning here -- "

"I know the feeling." He scratched his chin, feeling the first shoots of its slow-growing stubble.

"-- everyone on the floor calls each other 'babe' -- " A cough. "I'm sorry for your loss, Walter. Must still feel pretty raw, doesn't it."

"Oh," Stricklander felt weary again, "it comes and goes. In many respects, it feels like it happened a long time ago."

 

_peregrinus expectavi, pedes meos in cymbalis_

 

Everything was interminable and everything involved terminals and Walter was fast reaching the point where he killed someone for an aspirin. 

Barbara had jumped at the chance to pick him up -- this time from LAX -- and was somehow even able to work it into her schedule. He'd experienced a nagging feeling of doubt that this was in no way a good idea but weariness and an irritatingly vague sense of excitement overruled his common sense. 

She'd arrived two hours late, with children in tow. They then spent another two hours in traffic. 

Jim was, as previously stated, a good boy, but the other one, Toby, was a hyperactive brat with some sort of vendetta against the back of Walter's seat. Told to stop kicking it, he fell to drumming against the suitcase positioned between himself and Jim. Told to stop drumming, he resumed kicking the back of Walter's seat.

"Sorry," Barb apologized for the thousandth time, as yet another, more decisive driver cut in front of her. "His Nana's busy, and Gran-Gran's been watching the kiddos all week, so I thought I should take them off her hands."

"Pity Brent wasn't available," he remarked with strained grace as Toby attempted to destroy his kidney stones. "Do you _mind_?"

The little ginger menace beamed up at him. "It's a vibrating chair massage! Like at the nail parlor!"

"Nail parlors are gross," opined Jim. 

"Nuh-uh. Whenever Nana takes me, the ladies give me water with lemons in it."

Jim rolled his eyes. "That's called lemonade."

" _Nuh-uh_."

" _Yuh-huh_."

This was in the comparatively good part of the trip, before both boys announced they had to use the restroom in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

"Just pee in the cup, Toby," Barbara insisted. "Look, Jim's doing it -- "

"NO, don't look!"

"But I gotta do the _other_ one," wailed Toby. 

"Well -- can you just hold it?"

"What if I explode?"

"Then the evening will be complete," growled Walter through clenched teeth, not caring that Barbara shot him a warning glance.

When they finally got out of the worst of it, they were still pausing every forty minutes for an additional rest stop, and Walter's eyes were screwed shut since he didn't trust them to remain green. It was now ten at night.

"Hey," Barbara said with a desperate air of enforced motherliness, "who's hungry? I see a sign for Tacos Los Muertos coming up."

"I want a Zombie Taco!" yelled Toby in Walter's ear. "And a grape slushy!"

"I hate Zombie Tacos. Mom, can I have nachos?"

"Well, I don't mind, but we should ask Walt where he wants to eat. Walt?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Tacos okay?"

"I am at this point incapable of caring." His stomach growled traitorously.

"So . . . yeah, kids; tacos." Their cheering made him indent his teeth into his cheek.

Twenty minutes in a backed-up drive-through yielded orders being changed several times over, just as the rain that had been building all night finally broke. Barbara attempting to yell through a downpour for another five minutes had all but broken the fragile remnants of Walter's sanity into a thousand noncontiguous pieces.

And then, just as they were about to hit the road with their greasy-smelling booty, Toby whined, "Uh, I gotta go again -- "

At which point, Walter grabbed his burrito, vacated the car, and stalked ruthlessly towards the fig trees he'd seen back down at the edge of the strip overlooking the highway. The rain plastered his quiff to his forehead.

By the time he reached the boulder between the trees, the rain had almost completely abated. He tore the foil off his reeking foodstuff, cursed the universe, and promptly discovered three things in quick succession: 1) he had needed fresh air badly, 2) he had needed a shower badly, and 3) he had been starving.

Subsequently, when the sound of a car parking behind him was accented by the slam of a door and a woman's tread on gravel, Walter was considerably closer to human than he'd been ten minutes ago.

"You forgot your drink," Barbara said, expression guarded.

He wiped cilantro off his face. "You're welcome to it."

"Drink some first. I think you're dehydrated." She rifled through her jeans pocket and tossed him a bottle of ibuprofen. "You want some?"

"Where was this four hours ago?" he muttered. The sight of her jaw clenching did terrible things to the parts of him that had a conscience, but there weren't many of those sections left at the moment.

She handed him the drink, still standing. "Look. This isn't the way I wanted the evening to go. I messed up, bit off more than I can chew and I'm sorry. Just wash that down and I'll get you home, or I'll call you a taxi if you prefer --"

The hitherto-unmoved areas of Walter's psyche didn't care for the tone of finality he thought he detected in her voice and he held up his hands in surrender. "Please, Barbara, I just need a few more moments in the air to clear my mind. That's all." He unscrewed the bottle with a sigh. "It's -- it's been a very difficult few days. I don't mean to be such a beast; I'm quite grateful to you." He washed down the pills and discovered a fourth thing: he was, in fact, dehydrated. "Mmmph."

Her attention drifted to the highway below them. "Doesn't look so clogged from here," she remarked, neutrally.

"I suppose not."

"I shouldn't have brought the kids."

"I don't mind Jim so much. But -- what is wrong with that other child? Methamphetamines?"

She gave him a long, appraising look. "Abandonment issues." Her attention refocused on the highway. "Toby lost his whole family in one year. Mrs. Domzalski is all he has left, but she's trying to get by on a part-time job and Social Security. We pitch in where we can."

"Of course." He didn't feel entirely guilty for his hostility towards the brat, but suspected he would at a later, better-rested point. "I suppose I'm more familiar with how it manifests in adolescents than in actual children."

Barbara's expression was acutely unreadable, arms crossed, gaze distant. She didn't look quite human herself, with the light hitting her just so. The raindrops on the leaves around her face glittered like a halo, mirroring the gleam in her eyes. 

"I remember you in the grocery store," Walter remarked, hesitant to break the spell. "All by yourself -- well, except for Jim trying to do a thousand things at once. You looked as though you carried the weight of the entire world on your shoulders."

"And that was _before_ I finished rotations," she muttered, but the ghost of a smile crept across her face. "Feels like forever ago."

"And you just keep taking on hopeless cases like Toby and myself. Really, young Atlas; how appalling." She rewarded him with a snort and he moved to give her space on the boulder, oddly pleased when she accepted the remnants of his drink. "Here. I don't think I've actually come down with anything."

"You better not. If I have to explain to Wanda from work that I got sick from swapping spit with Walt Strickler, I'll never hear the end of it."

"Infamous, am I?"

Barbara arched an eyebrow vampishly and slurped. "Half the parents I work with are convinced that you're out to ruin their babies' chances at ever being accepted into college, and the other half thinks you walk on water." 

"Well, I am thoroughly monstrous." He nudged her elbow. She jabbed him back. "Though not quite buoyant enough for the second bit."

"The funny part is how they keep changing their minds from week to week." There was a faint twinkle in her eye that was not a trick of the air and rain. "Thanks to that substitute teacher they've got covering for you, it's currently weighted in your favor."

"I was afraid of that." Walter hung his head, running a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to slick it back into obedience. "I suppose I'll just need to start the Renaissance over again."

"Hey, we're overdue."

They lapsed into a companionable silence, as Barbara crunched ice and Walter slowly allowed his body to unclench from the infernal stresses and rigors of his long, thankless sojourn. There were no other Changelings in Arcadia; no grasping brotherhood of the maimed and hungry. No long histories of reliance and betrayal, no cheated glory, no distorted reflections of himself. Just stupid, oblivious humans, with their undeserved optimism and their communal support structures and their burritos. 

He emitted a sigh of profound relief, which Barbara mistook for something else. "Miss your family?"

"No," he said bluntly. 

"Hmm." She didn't sound surprised by his vehemence, or critical. It was somewhat absurd how that prompted him to make up an explanation.

"My . . . siblings rely too heavily upon me to set things right, never with any gratitude." He folded his hands and inspected their creases. "No love lost, there. If it weren't for . . . if not for my aunt's sake, I'd never have bothered to go back."

"Well." Barbara inspected the bottom of her soda. "I'm glad you got to say goodbye."

But he hadn't, he realized, not really. The last time he'd laid eyes on his familiar's aunt, he'd been so eager to leave the trappings of that miserable life behind that he'd barely spared her a second glance. The comb she made him had fallen into a river; the cloak she mended he'd torn up for bandages. Somewhere, possibly in earth, possibly long since disinterred, possibly mere dust, were the bones of the only being Walter could call family with something like warmth, and he could never know how she'd died, or when, or why. 

"Walt? You want a napkin?"

Embarrassed, he fixed his gaze on the middle distance until the pricking behind his eyes abated. "Ahem. I'm fine, thank you." He coughed. "You never . . . you never quite say the goodbyes you want, I've found."

"No," she agreed. "Everybody says closure is so important." Barbara seemed about to take another sip of her drink, then stopped. "As if . . . as if it, I mean hard stuff, pain, is something you can shut a door on. I don't buy that." 

"I'm a believer in doors, myself," he countered. "Though I concede that entrances are subtle. But then, Janus and Terminus are separate entities, after all."

"Janus . . ."

"The old Roman god of beginnings and ends, among other things. As opposed to Terminus, who governs borders and boundaries." He tucked the foil wrapper of his burrito into his jacket pocket and encountered something unexpected.

"Oh. Right. Like 'terminal'." She mashed her straw against the ice. "Funny. You'd think they should be the same god, right?"

"Insomuch as they both govern liminality, perhaps. But thresholds are tricky things; you probably want a degree of specificity." It was the unicorn cameo. Careless of him.

"Arrivals and departures," she murmured, then frowned. "But -- no, I still don't buy it. People acting like pain has an end point that you can see when you're in the middle of it -- that's stupid: it's there until it's not. If you ever get closure, it's never when you think you need it. You can't induce it."

Walter swallowed, counting to ten. "Those sentiments don't sell self-help books."

"Yeah, and they don't make it easier when your ass-- when your _soon-to-be ex_ thinks child support is optional, either," Barbara muttered. "But there you go. No doors when you need them."

Or portals, he thought. "Still?"

"Yeah." She exhaled. "Sorry. Didn't mean to turn this into the Barb Show."

"I'm fond of the Barb Show. The lead has such a charming personality." A twinge of guilt made him break his staring contest with the horizon. "I'm a heel. I never even asked you how you managed after . . . well, all that terrible night." He scanned her face for any new creases. "It must have been hellish."

Barbara just sighed. "Putting it mildly." She stabbed her straw against the ice cubes again. "I thought I was okay while it was happening, but . . ." She glanced back at the car. "Jim keeps waking me up; he says I'm trying to defibrillate in my sleep." 

"Oh, Barbara."

"I lost her," she added quietly. "That's the dumb thing -- she wasn't even part of the whole pile-up, she managed to stop in time and didn't get hit from behind, either. But -- I mean, she saw the worst of it, the really bad stuff that the first responders dealt with, and . . ." She shuddered, ever so slightly. "That fu-- that _stupid_ crash got her anyway."

Walter let the silence hang for a long moment before prompting, "Your first death?"

"Yeah." She carefully flicked something from the side of her eye. "Yeah."

"It's not your fault -- "

"How do you know that it's not my fault?" Barbara turned a particularly vehement glare in his direction, flashing fire. "Were you there? I'm a medical intern who got a battlefield promotion because the world went to -- " The sharpness faded as quickly as it had ignited, the flames in her eyes subsumed by soft monastery azures. " _God_. I'm sorry, Walt." She refocused her attention on her drink. "Sorry."

"As you said, and rather aptly," he said, unexpectedly and suddenly fond, "closure is never when we want it."

She ducked her head. "No. No, it sure isn't." Her sigh had a faint tremor in it. "Nope. Oh, where _were_ you, Walt?"

"That's not entirely fair," he replied sharply, feeling his ears go pink. "Where were you?"

Barbara threw up her arms in an exasperated gesture of despair. "I don't know! I don't know. I . . . " She raked a hand through her coppery mane, breath ragged. "You're the only thing in my life that feels like an anchor point to the real world. Like -- like it's not just the emergency room and the staff lounge and being somebody's mom. With you, I can just be a person, not . . ." Her fingers twisted. "Not a role."

Walter Strickler was silent. Stricklander was silent.

The highway sparkled below them; above, a jet tore a low path through the stratosphere, lights winking. A slight breeze shook the last of the rain off of the trees and onto his shoes; Barbara ostensibly removed her glasses to clean the water off, though he saw her fingers flick at the corners of her eyes.

"But that's not fair," she conceded. "I know you've got your own life, and -- god -- I'm so sorry about what happened with your aunt. Honestly."

"I should have checked in on you properly, my dear. I'm sorry."

This elicited an awkward chuckle. "'My dear'? Did you become a sixty-year-old church lady over there?"

He nudged her again. "No, dear. Can't run a jumble sale to save my life."

"Pfft." She put her hand on his. "Thanks, Walt."

"Thank you, Barbara." He brushed the side of her thumb against his, relishing that odd, subtle tremor under the skin. "I hope it's not too presumptuous to say that I missed you."

"Well, you're going to have to come around and show us all whatever it was that impressed Jim so much." Their knuckles grazed. "If that's not too presumptuous, either."

"It isn't terribly elaborate, I'm afraid. Potatoes and a bit of cheese."

"Root vegetables strike again?"

"Indeed."

She squeezed his hand. "I missed you too." 

Something mad and unknowable surged through Walter and was only barely held in check by banalities. "I didn't even manage to get a proper souvenir for either of you, that's the worst of it," he prattled, inward panic managing to tamp down whatever was urging him to butt his forehead against hers. "Just duty-free chocolates, really."

"What, no corny snowglobe of Big Ben? You're breaking my heart here, Strickler."

His own laughter seemed unusually affected and higher than usual. "I'm afraid Guildford's selection of commemorative tea towels is rather lacking."

She snorted. "What's it like, back home?"

"Oh, Arcadia's home, really." He smiled, oddly surprised at how easily it came. "With Aunt Tillie gone, all my favorite people are here." She blinked once, then returned the smile, her eyes gleaming like a silk brocade strung with pearls. 

The unmistakable sound of a seventeenth-century musical instrument being shaken out of a luggage case snapped him back to attention. "Well. Most of my favorite people." 

"I told him not to!" Jim was already protesting, pointing in obvious distress at Toby, who was trying to pick up the viol from the car floor. Bits of taco shell were smeared across its surface.

"Nuh-uh, you said we could look at it!"

"Not to _touch_ it!"

"But it's cool!" The other boy dragged his greasy fingers across the fingerboard, plucking a string so harshly that the rest of the cow must have felt it. Walter winced. "It's like a kid guitar! He totally got you a guitar!"

Barbara shifted from Kore, Flower-Maiden to Persephone, Queen of Hell in the space of 2.5 seconds; Walter was impressed. "Tobias Domzalski, you take your hands off that right _now_ or so help me I will park us by the side of the road and walk you the next fifty-eight miles home."

"But it's gonna rain again!"

" _Yes_."

Walter retrieved the instrument from the boy's pudgy hands with a newfound calm that surprised him, fidgeting with the pegs, inspecting the purfling. "No harm done -- at least, none that some luthier won't be overjoyed to correct." He noticed that Jim was watching his calibrations with amazement and -- strutting slightly -- pointed at the bow in the opened case. "Pass me that if you would, Jim; I'll see if she still sings."

"That's a weird violin," Barbara remarked. "Except -- it isn't, is it?"

"A distant relative. _Viola d'amore_ , the love viol. Phased out in favor of the more conventional strings you see these days, but good for light seranading. Aunt Tillie had some . . . _niche_ interests." It had been years since he'd played, but the suddenly festive mood demanded a tune. "Well? What will it be, something from Graupner?"

"Gun Robot!" yelled Jim.

"' _Kommet herzu lasset uns dem Herrn frohlocken_ ', perhaps?"

"GUN ROBOT!" screamed Toby.

Possibly it had been a mistake to open up the floor to requests. "Never mind; here's a song -- words by the Count of Champagne and Brie, tune by your humble Turnip Man:

_"'The unicorn and I are one:_  
He also pauses in amaze  
Before some maiden's magic gaze  
And while he wonders, is undone.  
On some dear breast he slumbers deep  
And Treason slays him in that sleep.  
Just so have ended my Life's days;  
So Love and my Lady lay me low.  
My heart will not survive this blow. 

"Oh, my heart will not survive this blow!'" He ended on a particularly good chord, the sympathetic strings enriching the warm mellow tone perfectly. It was a decent viol; no wonder Korshas had held onto it for so long. "Well?"

"I wanna try!" Toby lunged for the instrument, prompting Walter to raise it over his head. "Please! C'mon! Jim, tell him -- "

"Wow," was all Jim managed, his eyes as big as saucers. "Now can you do Gun Robot?"

"Which version?"

"The good one!"

"Which is?" Walter lifted the viol higher as Toby made another desperate leap.

"The GOOD ONE! Da da da DAAHHH BUM BUM DA da da da BUMM -- "

He glanced sideways at Barbara for an assist, then noticed that she was just staring at him in a slightly unfocused fashion, hand on cheek. "Hullo?"

She blinked, as though surfacing from deep underwater. "Uh. That -- You have a really nice singing voice, Walt."

He bowed. "Too kind. It's been some time since I've had an opportunity to use it."

"Well, we've got to fix that. Okay, I need everyone to finish their chips so we can get a move on." She clapped her hands. "And no more going through Walt's stuff, okay?"

Walter glanced down as something tugged on his sleeve. "I'm sorry your grandma's dead," Jim said sincerely, proffering his nachos with an earnest expression. 

"Thank you," he responded, and took a chip for the sake of gratitude, forgoing corrections.

"Was she old?"

"Very old, yes."

"Older than you?"

"The alternative would be something of a paradox, Jim." He opened the passenger side of the door and got in, hearing the boy clambering into the backseat behind him.

"Can you do the story again? With Gigaresh?"

Walter paused in licking cheese off his knuckles. "I expect you mean 'Gilgamesh'?"

"And can you do the voices?"

"Jim, sweetie, Walt is very tired," Barbara intervened. "Why don't we let him sleep on the way back? How about you and Toby switch seats," she added, with sudden insight. 

"But I want to know what happens to his friend -- "

Walter leaned back against the headrest. "Perhaps I'll come by, sometime after things have settled down. We'll try our hand at Potatoes Anna again, only this time with a full set of ingredients. Possibly I'll have a better answer for what happens to Enkidu. Does that sound acceptable?"

"Okay."

"Who's Potato Anna?" asked Toby.

"Hard to say. Potatoes are strange creatures." Walter closed his eyes to the sound of Jim's delighted giggling. "Take us home, Barbara."


	4. iunonius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Walter Strickler is offered kingship, among other things.

_Thursday afternoon_

Walter Strickler was no stranger to attention.

It had been somewhat annoying to realize of himself that -- in spite of centuries living all over Europe, the Near East and Asia -- he invariably defaulted to presenting as English whenever a mission did not require a specific nationality. This innate tendency had taken root from back in those days when being English meant speaking French, and had persisted on long past the supplementation of the national diet with tea (he had said it would never catch on, and was never so glad to be proved wrong).

Subsequently, Walter's decision not to pose as an American when coming to Arcadia some eight years prior had been partially instinctual, but also with a deliberate eye towards variety. Many of his tutoring stints on the Continent had come about as a result of his employers wishing to seem that much more cosmopolitan and refined by having a foreigner putting their children through their paces, and he suspected that Arcadia Oaks High School had thought much the same.

Of course, this was not without its drawbacks. It used to be that lurking fears of Perfidious Albion meant facing a higher degree of scrutiny when any of the Janus Order's activities required him to take risks. Nowadays, he just had to avoid the new math teacher.

"I have the distinct and unpleasant suspicion she's an Anglophile," he remarked sourly.

"Oh, she's attracted to fishermen?"

"No, she -- " He narrowed his eyes. "That was _appalling_ , Barbara."

His companion leaned back in her chair, smirking. "What, so you've got the monopoly on bad jokes all of a sudden?" She crossed her legs, inadvertently jostling the table and sending Walter's pens rattling off the edge; he caught them with a well-practiced hand. "Anyway, what's the problem?"

"She keeps finding flimsy pretexts for dropping by my office -- "

"How did you get an office, anyway?" Barbara asked. "Not that you don't deserve one."

"It's technically a storage room, but I insisted that I needed a workspace." Which, of course, he did, especially considering it was he who had enshrined the rule about never keeping anything connected with the Initiative in one's abode. "There's a piano in it, for goodness' sake; it's not an executive suite."

"Do you play?"

"I fail to see how this is in any way relevant to this discussion, Barbara."

"It's called 'making conversation', Walt."

"We were already engaged in conversation, you ridiculous person," he retorted, though without rancor and slightly amused. "What's gotten into you? You seem -- effervescent."

"Do I need a reason?" She glanced out at the street. "It's May, the washing machine is fixed, the ex is finally signing the papers --"

"Ah, hence the spring in her step! Congratulations." He raised his cup in salute. "I'd take you out for a celebratory dinner, except I doubt your schedule allows it."

Barbara flushed. "I will definitely take a rain check." She pushed her slipping glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Although, funny you should mention that . . ."

He paused, lowering the cup. "Oh?"

"Well." She glanced to the side, a slightly embarrassed grin barely held in check. "Um. A bunch of us from work, we have our birthdays this month, so we're heading out to Giovanni's on Saturday, you know, for dinner and drinks." Barbara coughed. "I mean, nothing too fancy, plus not everyone can be there, and people are bringing kids and family, but if you wanted to say hi -- "

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry -- "

"It's all right -- " Barbara said quickly.

"-- I'd forgotten about your birthday, for goodness's sake." He'd observed her driver's license numerous times as she rifled through her wallet for any number of missing items, but the revelation that it had snuck up so quickly was jarring. "This past Tuesday, correct?"

"Yep." Barbara smiled a bit sheepishly. 

"Why on earth didn't you say anything? I'd have bought you a slice of cake."

"Hey, I wasn't about to call too much attention to this being the last year of my twenties," she sighed. "It'd better get easier from here."

Walter -- who had long held that youth was wasted on the young -- laid a consoling hand over hers. "Considerably so. And I would be pleased to stop by -- is that the casual dining place on 38th and Stinson? I thought they'd closed."

"They had. Honestly, it's only ever open for six months at a time, I swear." Barbara rolled her eyes. "They used to be one of those family dining places, but the owners tried going high-concept with some wood-fire pizza shenanigans." She sucked the inside of her cheek pensively, adding, "Considering how many people wearing Giovanni's work shirts waltz into the ER with second-degree burns, I think they're still working out the kinks."

It occurred to Walter to move his hand away. "Ah." That would also explain the semi-yearly siren concerts in that part of town; he'd wondered why the air smelled of marinara those nights. "Except -- didn't they also try rebranding as an Irish pub two years ago?" His fingers, freed from the steady ambient current of Barbara's skin, began tapping the table surface in annoyance; he quelled them. "Presumably that didn't take, either?"

Barbara arched one of her eyebrows over the rim of her boxy glasses, drawling, "They do pretty good fried calamari and everything else is hit or miss. Like I said, a lot of us have kids under ten, so it's not fancy by any means." She tilted her head back to scratch under her chin, white throat exposed, skin shifting over the delicate veins, the rigging of tendons, the soft but solid node of her voicebox --

Walter started. "Sorry. Miles away. What?"

"I said, Wanda's bringing both her boys, so she might be too busy dealing with their fighting to give you any grief about Marcus's report card. Oh, and Brent's bringing Lexi." 

Joy, he thought dourly. "I assume Jim and Gran-Gr-- _Evelyn_ shall be making an appearance?"

"Sure are. The Domzalskis too, maybe. And . . . I mean, it'd be great to see you if you can make it." Barbara tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and shot him a smile that could have been ripped from the better works of the Flemish Primitives. "Though I'm guessing it's not your speed."

"Oh?" He folded his arms in an expression of calculated hauteur. "And what, pray tell, is my speed?"

That enigmatic smile grew decidedly impish. "Warm milk and an aspirin at eight o'clock sharp?"

"You seem to be implying something, rash Atlas."

She batted her lashes, the picture of wounded innocence. "A _very_ reliable source told me that you were seven hundred years old."

Apparently Jim had remembered something, after all. "A blatant lie. I said two thousand, thank you very much."

"So . . . warm milk, aspirin, and bedtime is seven-thirty? Sorry to hear you can't make it."

Walter furrowed his brow at her severely, or at least as much as the perpetually-mild features of his stolen countenance allowed. "And here I thought you were the great exception to the rule."

"What rule would this be, exactly?"

"I thought I'd finally found a Taurus who wasn't characterized by insufferable cheek." He folded his arms in resignation. "Alas. It seems as though, once again, I am at odds with the Bull."

 

_Thursday evening_

 

"Impure," snarled Bular, teeth jutting menacingly towards the screen, "my patience wears thin."

The last regrettable instance of conversation between Stricklander and the son of Gunmar had involved an execution. Judging by the expression on the Moscow division's faces, this was not something they were able to forget, and if Bular were capable of working a computer on his own, they would likely have decamped to the other side of the vault door, or perhaps of the city.

Walter sighed and steepled his fingers. "Good morning, Bular. It is morning over there, isn't it?" He took in a miserable-looking Pyotr, who was clearly trying to make the act of adjusting the volume seem sufficiently complicated and arcane as to require his continued existence. "I trust you've all been sleeping well -- "

Bular's fist came down upon the table. The action had likely been intended for emphasis alongside a snarled rebuttal, but having misgauged his strength in regard to the tensile strength of its surface, another two minutes of yelping, static, and frantic camera adjustments passed on their end while Walter stared at the ceiling and ran through the likely points of contention that had induced Bular to slog back through Siberia to bellow at him.

Pyotr rematerialized through the digital snow. "Here we are, my lord, just _OOOF_!" With a crash, Bular reappeared in shot, red eyes blazing. Walter's worse angels demanded that he tweak the fool's pride on how his little temper tantrum had backfired, but more pragmatic seraphim noted the ashen expressions on Zhenya and Nomura's faces and advised him not to lose any more personnel.

He found it annoying that the only thing that seemed to reliably curb Bular's rage was his own loss of control, but such was their dynamic; thus, while he could have easily responded with smug amusement, an irritated mien and tone of annoyance would do more to tame the savage beast. "Are you _quite_ done ruining our equipment? That's property of the Order, you know; your father's property by extension -- "

His tactic worked, unfortunately. "And by the same extension, mine to do with as I please." The black-fanged leer and taunting tone managed to genuinely irk Walter, forcing him to re-evaluate his approach. "As with all things he owns."

"Why are you in Moscow again? Your instructions were clear -- "

"I do not take orders from you -- "

"You do and have." Stricklander realized the trap, edged away from it in time. "As dictated by the needs of the mission. Our goal is the same, need I remind you?"

"Is it?" 

Not this again. "I repeat, what possessed you to come to Moscow? It's not as though you were ever terribly subtle about your movements; how much have we been forced to cover up?" Something about the terrified small head gesture Zhenya made compelled him to forgo this line of inquiry. "Or do you have concerns about the restoration of Killahead Bridge? As you'd know if you ever bothered to check in on your satellite phone, which was generously provided for you at no small expense, with an operator to boot -- "

Said operator had originally been Nomura, in what had been a disciplinary assignment meant to convey the extent of Stricklander's displeasure with her failure, and he'd half-expected boredom or Bular to do her in. The fact she'd survived long enough to be attached to this investigation spoke less of any mutual respect or affection between her and her charge than it did her dodging and hiding abilities. Judging from the sudden widening of her eyes at his mention of the Bridge, she didn't feel overly confident about those odds at the moment.

"I grow bored with your toys, Stricklander. And with your cast-off defectives." Bular turned to glower at Nomura. "None of the Impure have succeeded in finding what was stolen. They fail my father. And as he is not here to punish them -- " He slowly withdrew one of his titanic black swords from its scabbard, clearly relishing the hiss and clink it made and the dawning horror on the faces of the female Changelings as he stepped towards them.

Zhenya wisely opted to be anesthetized for whatever was coming next, unscrewing and downing the entire contents of her flask in less time than it took for Bular to cross the room. She needn't have worried, as his attention seemed fixed on Nomura, who fell into trollskin with her hands raised in supplication.

"Please, Lord Bular, I just need more time -- "

"You've had almost a year." He swung the blade towards Nomura's feet, clearly just toying with her to make her jump. "And what has been recovered? Nothing!" The backswing nearly got her, but she'd always been just a little too nimble to trip up. Walter's grip tightened on the arms of his chair.

" _Please_ ," she hissed, somersaulting over a bank of old computers in a desperate attempt to buy herself distance. "Please, it's not my fault, I shouldn't even _be_ here -- "

"On that point, we agree," Bular rumbled, advancing around the side. Walter, in spite of his fingernails embedding into the vinyl of his chair, was not inclined to contest that particular assertion either.

Scrabbling backwards, Nomura's eyes locked with Walter's for a split-second, imploring, desperate, terrified. Behind her head, a raised sword --

\-- it solved so many problems, and it wasn't anything she didn't deserve, he owed her nothing --

" _Enough_." He shed his skin, letting the command rasp and catch on stony teeth. "Save your rage for our true enemies, son of Gunmar." He pounded the desk with his fist, though the worst he managed was to splinter the finish; it was more important to let the stupid brute think he'd gotten to Stricklander than it was to match his fury. "And blame your own impetuous decisions for our lack of success. This is on your head as much as ours."

Bular's rush towards the camera was the stuff of nightmares. Not for the first time, Stricklander was glad he'd soundproofed the room. "How DARE you blame ME for the FAILURES of your pathetic herd of misborns -- "

But the rage was real, now, and he met the other's roars with his own bared fangs. "Your careless actions have complicated everything the servants of Gunmar have attempted in this world!" He brought down his fist again; more splintering wood. "You dragged Trollhunters across our path for eight consecutive centuries! You forced us to evacuate Great Zimbabwe and Jamestown! We nearly bankrupted ourselves covering up your blunders -- remember Tunguska?" He forced himself to lean in and match his glare against the single furious red eye that dominated the screen, his voice slipping of its own accord from granite-flecked tonalities into its infinitely more vicious human version. "Or have you forgotten the Somme, my dear Bular, best-beloved of the Underlord -- once again: _how is your back_?"

The pupil constricted, flooding the room with even more volcanic light. For a moment, Stricklander felt certain that the last thing the screen showed would be an oncoming fist --

A low, serrated growl was Bular's only reply. The red orb grew distant as he moved back from the camera, arms folded. Stricklander suppressed the urge to sigh, grateful as always that his features were less expressive while stone-clad. 

"You presume too much, Impure." The onyx mountain snorted, sheathing his sword. "Never forget: on the coming day of wrath, you will answer to my father."

"I always have." Stricklander donned flesh again, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. "I always will." Fidgeting with his cuffs, he glanced at Pyotr, who had lurched back into view, dazed. "The Moscow division has been keeping me well-appraised of the ongoing situation. It's not ideal, but neither is it beyond repair. It simply requires delicacy and finesse -- you'll forgive me if I forgo another round of explanation as to what those terms entail, and just let you know where you might better serve Gunmar's cause?"

Another low growl. "Where?"

"Our operatives in Cappadocia have confirmed that an enclave of various troll outcasts have been plotting to leverage something they discovered for re-entry into the Underground." He sat back down in his seat. "They've been cagey about whatever it is, which could mean it's part of the Bridge. They want to speak to the Trollhunter, in any case. Thus far, all cries have fallen on deaf ears." Walter allowed himself a smirk, crossing one leg over the other. "But these cries should stop entirely, don't you think?"

Bular rounded on Zhenya, who boozily fell over. "Take me there. Now."

"You'll be briefed and provisioned in due course. Just remember to keep a low profile; this area is populated by both trolls and humans, and the region doesn't need another war zone." He folded his arms, forcing a weary look onto his face to seal the deal. "There. Something to sink your teeth into. Satisfied?"

"For now." Bular leaned in, closer. "But I won't forget about this, Impure. This discussion is not over." He pulled away with a monstrous exhalation that left vapor on the lens, then stomped out of the room. Something offscreen sparked as though punched. Rather hard.

Nomura's disheveled head emerged from the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. "Th -- thank you, Lord Stricklander, for intervening -- "

"Don't thank me yet," he snapped, the old displeasure welling up again. "You're going with him."

She gaped, sagging back down. "But -- no. _No_. I'm so close to finding the -- "

"You will do as you are ordered!" Walter slammed his fist on the desk for a third time.

This, it transpired, was a mistake.

 

_Thursday night/Friday morning_

 

"How . . . " Barbara stared at his hand. "How. Just . . ."

He gave her what he suspected was something of a sickly grin. "Not entirely sure, actually. I'd have removed them myself, but I'm right-handed."

She sighed. "Walt, please tell me you didn't drive here like this."

"Well, you must admit this constitutes an emergency only in the very loosest sense of the word -- " He waved his injured extremity -- wrapped in a blood-dotted handkerchief -- in a vague circle, encompassing the mostly-empty waiting room. 

" _Walt_."

"I took a cab." Fragwa had offered to dig out the splintered desk fragments from his hand, but Walter couldn't suffer the touch of a goblin in a moment of physical distress. "In any case, your shift is ending, so I'm somebody else's problem. Go home; get some well-deserved rest." He noted with mounting concern that her expression was distinctly more haggard then he'd seen in some time. "Barbara?"

"Walter Strickler?" called the receptionist. "If you'll just follow Wanda here, they're ready for you -- "

"I'm driving you home," Barbara declared. "Not negotiable."

"You need your sleep -- " Walter looked her up and down. "Very badly, I should think."

"Yes. And a burger. And I need to drive you home." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Text me when they're done with you. I'll be in the lounge." A squeeze on his shoulder did something to momentarily dull the pain in his hand, sparks shivering through his nerves. 

The memory of that blessed numbness was something he desperately tried to retain over the next few minutes as Dr. Meyers extracted the last remnant of Walter's desk from the fleshy part of his hand. "These suckers really got rammed in here good," he remarked. "Lucky you won't need stitches."

A healthy Changeling's flesh healed faster than a human's, so Walter shared that sentiment. More than once he'd had to explain away the disappearance of a wound that should have left a deeper scar; it was one argument for never putting down roots. 

Disinfected, lectured, bandaged and released on his own recognizance, he staggered out into the night air and took a deep series of breaths, rudely interrupted by a car horn and a pair of headlights being flicked on and off. Fragwa waved helpfully, in case Walter hadn't understood the general idea. 

Easier, after all. And she would be tired. Better for all parties if he simply --

" _Wagga su waka_?" The goblin sniffed with obvious interest at the gauze around his hand, its bestial nose bumping roughly against one of the puncture wounds. Walter hissed and instinctively swatted it away -- again, with the injured hand. The lessons were not sticking, today.

"Go," he spat. "Take the car back to the apartment. I have unfinished business."

 

_Saturday afternoon_

 

"Business is good, Lord Stricklander, but looks to be worsening," Ade sighed, rubbing his temples with a degree of unconscious theatricality. "What we've been able to sell of Korshas's abominable pile has stabilized us for now, I should say, though who knows what the future holds?"

Walter was disinclined to put too much stock by Ade's doomsaying, as his habitual answer to any question put to him was that everything would fall to pieces at the first opportunity. He'd been saying this for some four hundred years, now. "I've enjoyed considerable success in liquidating my portion. We look to be back in the black, at least."

Ade waved his fingers about impatiently. "For now. Anything could happen with oil prices, and this recession will last for years. On the subject of investments -- "

"Oh, enough of that," scoffed Walter, standing up. "I've told you enough times that we're not trying to make a fortune; we're trying to stay solvent long enough to reassemble Killahead." He picked up his pen and idly began tapping it against his bandaged hand, before realizing that was not the best idea. "It's -- _erk_ \-- it's not as though the Janus Order is obligated to provide health insurance, after all." Now those would be some deductibles, he thought blackly.

"No, but -- " Ade's fidgeting grew still. " _How_ soon?"

This again. "Debatable. Conservatively? I'd say we've recovered eighty-five percent of the Bridge. The Eyestone is still missing, and there were pieces still unaccounted-for prior to the great unpleasantness at the turn of the last century -- " Ade ducked his head and frantically looked away; he had testified against Walter at his ousting, " -- and it was closer to completion then." Walter let his attention drift to the world map on the wall. "But things were lost because of that war. And we'd not dug ourselves out by the start of the next."

"Yes, well," the accountant said, too hastily, "obviously the right leadership stabilized everything, but -- when?" He leaned towards the screen, expression earnest. "It will be necessary to install a permanent Changeling presence in the area soon, correct? That will entail very many expenses, and I will require time to -- "

"Oh, did you really drag me here on an off-night just to fuss about that? I'm well-aware there's a timetable, Ade; leave me to deal with it. Show some faith," he added, with the barest hint of an edge to his voice.

It went undetected. "So . . . you've selected a location? For the headquarters?"

Walter rolled his eyes. "Such faith. Excuse me, Ade; I've got a party to go to."

The accountant laughed politely, then blanched at his superior's expression. "Oh. You were . . . serious?"

 

_Saturday evening_

 

Whenever asked what had brought him to Arcadia, Walter Strickler's stock answer was, 'the view'. Granted, he was looking at a very different horizon.

He'd watched -- with some concern, mostly from a distance -- as the sleepy town of only 500 souls had steadily grown over the twentieth century, bringing in more and more humans and with them, more and more danger of detection. Luckily -- for certain values of luck, at any rate -- Bular hadn't been the only member of the Gumm-Gumm army to be locked out of the Darklands, and his followers had provided a reliable source of distraction for the enemy. That small remnant had long since been whittled away by accident, defection, treachery, or Bular himself, with various Trollhunters pruning the rest. 

As these merry games played out in brutal fashion over the centuries, the Janus Order took the opportunity to sink its roots deep into the secret workings of the world. The endgame was always to open Killahead Bridge by the Heartstone, of course, which entailed frantic centuries of coordinating movement with the Gumm-Gumm armies via goblin and Fetch, attempting to map out the Surface in tandem with the Darklands. At least Gunmar hadn't been forced to cross an ocean on his side; that would have been disastrous.

The plan had hit a number of setbacks. After Nomrua's little blunder, Stricklander ordered all Janus Operatives out of the area -- he had no idea if Kanjigar suspected anything, but it would be easier for the Trollhunter to write the whole sordid episode off if there were no indication that any other Changelings existed in Arcadia, or indeed, anywhere in the world. The barest suspicion that the hated race of spies and assassins was still lurking about, and suddenly every unaccounted-for component of the Bridge would be locked away, or thrown into places beyond reach. 

Arcadia had slumbered for decades. Now it was finally time to start reversing things. 

Yet, as Walter ambled down the street towards the alleged restaurant, he wondered if he was dreading the prospect of reintegrating the Janus Order on logistical grounds or personal ones. In so many respects, one felt at home amongst other Changelings -- and yet, home had been the murderous creches of the Darklands, being taught to prevail at all costs and to form no close attachments to one another. He wasn't lonely, but he was alone; it was important to remember the distinction, lest one grow maudlin. The prospect of other people's parties always exacerbated this sort of thing.

Giovanni's was, if he was being generous, 'idiosyncratic'. The reviews he'd read on the internet had described it with terms like 'family-style Italian cuisine' and alternately 'rustic Italian upscale pizza eatery' and 'old-world Irish charm', dependent on the date of publication. More pithy reviews in comments sections alleged 'wage theft' and 'grease fires' and 'basement'.

Walter couldn't speak to the first two, but he was definitely in a basement; a spacious, slightly smoky space accessible through a surprisingly acceptable sunken terrace. He had been guided to a much less impressive corner overrun with upwards of thirty humans -- some he recognized, most not -- and paid fifteen dollars for the privilege of trying to scoop watery manicotti out of a chafing plate with his bad hand. 

She announced herself by a gentle weight on his shoulder, that familiar current. "Hey. Glad you made it."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," he returned. "Might I beg your assistance?"

She was wearing a badly-cut dark green velour dress that looked several years out of style and didn't set her hair or her eyes off nearly as well as it should. One particular shade of green suggested itself.

Barbara appropriated the tongs and twirled them speculatively. "See anything you like?"

"I had something in mind, yes." Walter gestured at what he suspected was chicken saltimbocca, marinating in slightly less oil than most of the other pans. "I don't see any of that calamari you were talking up."

"I was outvoted. Apparently, some people really don't like seafood --"

"How shellfish of them."

She clucked her tongue. "Beat me to it." 

"Well, it seemed obvious." He carefully angled his plate to catch the wretched chicken, watching it skid into a wall of lasagna. "This establishment is certainly . . . er . . . unique."

Barbara snorted, lowering her voice. "Right? Not one, but _two_ statues of David, and one's got underpants and everything!"

Walter raised an eyebrow at the figure in question, clad in boxers with pizza slice print. "I would have thought the author of the Psalms a briefs man, if anything." He coughed. "Is there any place in particular I should . . ?"

"Oh. I'm over there, with Gr- with my grandmother and Jim -- "

"Barb! Hey, Barb!" Walter noted Brent standing next to some recent arrivals. He also noted Brent noting him. "Chelsea's here!"

"Great! Excuse me," Barbara squeezed his hand (the good one, fortunately), and wove her way back through the throng to a sudden chorus of cheers. He stood, once again unmoored and adrift in a sea of strangers, his pasta cooling. 

From across the buffet, Marcus Robinson blinked at him in sudden alarmed recognition. "Mr. Strict-ler? Who let _you_ in?" He flipped a meatball onto his plate with the expert and easy grace of a fourteen-year-old who should know better.

"Good evening, Mr. Robinson," he replied wearily. 

Marcus grinned, spinning the tongs around his fingers with a juggler's skill. He scooped three more meatballs out of the pan and managed to balance them on the utensil's edge, which was actually a dextrous bit of tumbling, at least until his older brother shoved him and they bounced into the salad tray.

"Come on, dumbbutt. Quit holding up the line." At this reprimand, Marcus grew suddenly withdrawn and slunk to the end of the buffet. Walter shot Terrance a look of vague disapproval that the hulking former linebacker didn't bother to acknowledge. There was nothing for it but to sit down.

Gran-Gr-- _Evelyn_ was in her seventies and reminiscent of a ptarmigan: beady-eyed, plump, and watchful. Walter found her abstractly pleasant to share a table with, even if her hearing aid was always shrieking and her maternal instincts never in abatement.

"Jim says your grandmother passed," she said for the fourth or fifth time that evening. "So sorry to hear that."

"My aunt, actually. And thank you." 

"Jim likes you a lot." She squinted at the drinks menu, holding it mere inches from her face. "'Limoncello'. Well, I never. He says you play an instrument?"

"Several, yes. Passing well, if I'm allowed a moment of vanity."

"Good to have a musician around," Evelyn remarked. "My Jacob played the saxophone right up until he died, oh, not long ago." She looked up. "You never met him, did you?"

"Only in stories, I'm afraid. He seems like a singular individual." He took a cautious bite of the chicken, winced, and attempted to spit it out in as decorous a fashion as possible. 

"It's two Christmases, now. Hanukkahs, too. We did both," she clarified for the ninth or tenth time on the subject of her husband's death. "Do you do Christmas?"

Walter surreptitiously palmed the offending chicken out of his mouth and deposited it underneath the tablecloth. "I break out the good port and read some M.R. James by the light of a plum pudding, but I fear that's my limit."

"I should make you a stocking," Evelyn said. "I always make people stockings."

Walter was not quite sure what he had done to warrant one, but conversations with Evelyn frequently went into the weeds. It was not unlike being tied to the wheel of a knife-thrower who was facing the wrong direction: you were immobilized, but basically safe. "Too kind."

"You know, they didn't want us getting married," she added, wistfully staring off into the trompe l'oeil distance of a badly-painted fresco. "Good Lutheran girls didn't marry Jewish boys, good Jewish boys didn't marry Lutheran girls -- "

"Well, we have to get Unitarians from somewhere," Walter retorted, though this was likely lost in another fit of high-pitched shrieking from the vicinity of her ear. "I expect you achieved latke proficiency in due course?"

"What, honey?" The noise subsided, though Evelyn's voice remained loud. "Did you say you wanted latkes? I only do those for the holidays."

"No, that's quite -- "

"You come over some night, I'll make some for you. Only I'll need help. Jim's a good helper -- " She looked around in sudden consternation. "Where is that boy? Did he go under the table?"

"I certainly hope not," he muttered. Glancing about, he took in the buffet tables, the crowd of strangers, the naked David, the clothed David, a waiter running into the kitchen with a fire extinguisher, the fountain from a garden-supply store that was trying to evoke a plaza, Brent's daughter Lexi throwing a fork into said fountain, a bar --

Walter straightened. "I've found him, Mrs. Steiner. Excuse me."

 

_Saturday afternoon (again)_

 

"Excuse me! Yoo-hoo, Mr. Strickler?" 

Walter felt every inch of his spine stiffen in dread. He had been in the process of locking up his office, but now briefly contemplated darting back inside and climbing out the window.

This would not be mannerly, he determined, nor conducive to long-term employment. Also, his hand would likely impede any attempts to get the window catch open. Thus, he composed his features and turned to greet the rapidly-approaching figure with its improbable hair and stork-like gait. "Good afternoon, Ms. Janeth. I was _just_ leaving -- "

"I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time," she trilled, adjusting her spectacles. "I didn't get much of a chance to talk to you at the all-staff meeting -- "

Principal Levit had made great pains to introduce her to everyone, as the teacher she was replacing in the fall semester was an institution in himself. In the interests of ensuring a smooth transition, Ms. Janeth was taken around to see each of her colleagues in their native environment; Walter had been deep in a lecture (straying not infrequently into personal anecdotes) about the formation of the Church of England. Somewhere between bemoaning the dissolution of the monasteries and joking about how "Rough Wooing" was Henry VIII's answer to everything, he'd looked up and noticed her intense, hawklike stare fixated squarely upon him.

Walter's open door policy underwent abrupt revision after she draped herself against his doorframe and simpered at him while he'd been attempting to convince Marcus that he should be spending less effort in trying to get a rise out of his teachers and more time on his essays; Ms. Janeth's unexpected salutations had ended up rattling the boy as much as they did his teacher. He'd managed to avoid being left alone with her later at the staff meeting by convincing Coach Lawrence that she had expressed interest in the muscle-gain supplements he was selling out of the back of his truck. Unfortunately, no such distraction currently seemed forthcoming. 

"Are you settling into Arcadia Oaks comfortably?" he asked, frantically casting about for safe conversational fodder. "I believe you mentioned being a student here, some time ago -- "

"Not that long ago," she giggled, though there was a slight huff to it. "But yes, it's so good to be back at the old alma mater. This school was the first place I ever tread the boards, you know." She waved a hand in the air as though conducting an imaginary orchestra, nearly clipping his ear in the process. "'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love -- '"

"You were involved in the Drama Club?" Walter hazarded, attempting to exit, stage left. 

She batted her eyelashes. "The definitive Juliet, they called me." She sighed. "Oh, but those were the days . . ."

"Yes, well -- "

"And it seems as though Fate has brought me back to the halls of my first flower," Ms. Janeth purred, leaning in just a little too close for comfort. "'Fortune, good-night: smile once more; turn thy wheel!' On the subject of which," she added, her proximity now even more upsetting, "I had a somewhat delicate proposition I wanted to put to you -- "

"I'm actually running late for an engagement," Walter said quickly. "A -- a lady friend of mine is celebrating her birthday -- "

Ms. Janeth's eyes widened. "What? Without a card? A bouquet?" She giggled. "You can hardly expect me to believe that."

"I assure you it's true," he retorted. "Perhaps some other time? Excuse me -- "

 

_Friday morning (early)_

 

"Excuse me," Barbara muttered, digging yet again in her oversized and much-abused messenger bag. "Just got to -- ah." She withdrew the keys from the bottom, yanking out several pens in the process. Walter bent to collect them, but she waved him away. "Don't; your hand."

"I think you're fussing a bit more than necessary, Barbara." 

His only response was a sigh, and an incline of the head. They walked out into the parking lot in silence, and within the space of minutes were heading out into town. Walter's apartment was on the way past one of the few burger chains still open at this time of night, so by mutual consensus they hit the drive-thru.

"Take the road up past Oak Park," he suggested. "There's a good overlook; dinner with a view."

"Makeout Point?" she snorted, eyebrow raised. "Geez. I'd have made you pay for my burger if I'd known."

"Please," he scoffed, more annoyed than amused. "I always come here to think. In order to gain perspective, you need to be able to trace all vanishing points to the horizon."

"I don't get it," Barbara answered distractedly, but followed Walter's directions without complaint. She parked in his preferred space, staring out at the town in its cradle of light as they divvied up the contents of their order. Walter had never particularly cared for fast food, but had long since reconciled himself to the reality that Barbara's companionship involved exposure to sub-par victuals. It dinged his pride slightly that she hadn't turned out to be a vegetarian despite his earlier suspicions; indeed, she had a healthy yen for most forms of meat. 

She hadn't touched her hamburger. "Barbara? Lost your appetite?"

"Mmm." A desultory attempt was made at picking off the onions before it was returned to its wrapper. Her gaze was locked with the edge of the canyon, as though looking for the aforementioned vanishing points. 

Walter would normally have volunteered some light topics of conversation, but his mind kept wandering to the abruptly-terminated conversation with Bular. He'd not lied -- not exactly; the miserable cadre of rejects that were trying to buy their way back into the earth almost certainly had nothing related to Killahead. He'd hardly have sent the hulking brute there if they did; it would be far too obvious what was going on. Still, the Skullcrusher's son would get to slip his lead for a bit and bloody his swords on something that wasn't saiga or Changelings, and maybe Kanjigar wouldn't even be alerted. Or, maybe he would and they'd kill each other; one could always dream. Just as long as Nomura tailed Bular from a sufficient distance, covering his tracks from the humans, poised to steal whatever it was that those trolls were holding -- 

She was crying. "B-- Barbara? Are you all right?"

The worrying aspect of this was that -- in the space of a year -- he had seen her in various states of distress, enough to know that she was not unfeeling but also possessed of sufficient reserve that outright tears never seemed to arrive in her eyes. Now, they were running down her cheeks, yet her expression wasn't one of sorrow: it was one of sheer, frustrated rage.

"I just -- I -- " For a terrible moment, it seemed as though she might hyperventilate, and her hands balled into fists. "I _can't_ \--"

"Breathe, Barbara -- "

"I hate him so goddamned much, Walt," she seethed. "I _hate_ him."

Strange that in a day that saw Bular charge him that her curses should seem more alarming, somehow. Then again, Bular lunged at Stricklander on a not infrequent basis, whereas Barbara was scrupulous about her language. "Your -- your husband? I mean, ex -- "

"He moved out-of-state," she spat. "Out of nowhere. I knew he wasn't in Arcadia; he never would come to see Jim -- and now he's just -- just _fucking around_ on the other side of the country. I can't get a hold of him. He didn't return the paperwork and he -- " She threw her head against the steering wheel, "He won't work out a custody agreement for Jim. _He doesn't care_."

"Oh, for god's sake." In spite of himself, Walter felt an old fury rising; he choked it back. "That's -- that's contemptible."

"How does he _do_ it?" Her voice was low, but more like a hiss than anything close to tears now. "All Jim wants, all he's ever wanted since -- since _before_ we broke up was for his dad to be there for him, and now -- " Barbara's fist slammed down onto her thigh -- or would have, except that it was impeded by hamburger, which splattered wetly in all directions. 

She blinked, her face ribboned with mustard. "Oh. Oh -- Walter, I am so -- "

With as much dignity as he could salvage, Walter removed a pickle from the side of his neck. "No, thank you. I said onions and lettuce, only."

Barbara swayed, and then burst into slightly hysterical laughter. He added some decorous chuckling to the mix as he rifled through the bag, passing her a napkin and dabbing at the places where ketchup had spattered onto the console. "And if you say 'sorry' one more time, Ms. Lake, your fries are forfeit." He passed her the largely-untouched sandwich of his own. "Here, I think you'll need this more than me. More spit-swapping with the fiend Strickler."

"Hmph." She looked away, suddenly shy, but took the burger and, hungry as suspected, devoured it within the space of three minutes as he wiped condiments off her face with the fussiness of a maiden aunt. "Glad you're not using spit for this."

"Now there's a thought. Incidentally, you'll want to wash thoroughly at your hairline."

"Ugh." Barbara sighed. "That bad?"

"You have such lovely red overtones. Yellow dulls the appearance."

She gave an exasperated (and slightly chastened) chuckle, wiping the corner of her mouth. "They told me parenthood would mean getting food in my hair, but I didn't think it would be me throwing it." Her hand moved over her eyes, smearing residual mustard over the recently-cleaned portion of forehead. "I'm such a mess."

"Does Jim know?" Possibly it was a mistake to enquire, but a pang of concern needled him. "About his father's . . . departure?"

"He hasn't seen him since his fifth birthday," Barbara replied, eyes still covered. "They talked twice on the phone, and that's it." A long, long sigh. "He used to keep asking 'when is Daddy coming back', but now . . . " The hand came down. "That boy _loves_ him. They were always playing. Right up until he left, they'd be roughhousing and goofing around." Her voice grew flat with despair. "How -- how do you make a little boy, a child believe that you love him and then just walk away like he's _nothing_?" She was staring out at the valley, eyes brimming with tears Walter suspected would never quite fall. "How do you name him after yourself and then just . . ."

"Sons deprived of their fathers suffer uniquely," Walter observed, at length. "The best become kind; the worst take it out on others." He liberated a handful of fries from the bag, resisting the urge to run them through the residual ketchup on Barbara's arm. "Jim runs to kindness, if anything."

"He shouldn't have to." 

"He comes by it naturally. He's a good boy." The world macerates good boys, he did not say. "And whatever your ex does or doesn't do, Jim has you. You're a good mother, Barbara."

"No, I'm -- "

Walter didn't want to hear it. "I need you to believe me, as I speak with the authority of far too many parent-teacher conferences and bake sales and late-night phonecalls. Please listen to me, I've seen this play out enough times that I can tell you that you're not alone." 

He fixed his own gaze on the valley and the broader picture it presented. "Jim is going to suffer. You cannot stop this, only mitigate it. Even so, you will never mitigate enough, even if you had all the time and money in the world, and all the positive male role models imaginable, and the best therapists known to man. Short of wiping Jim's memory or forcing a massive personality change in his father, what _could_ you do?"

He was aware of her head turning, slightly. "That's . . . that's a hosed-up way of putting it, Walt."

To be fair, the theoreticals he was positing did have roots in some unsavory past activities. "My point is, it's not in your power to fix. Focus on what you can control. Don't make excuses for that man; let Jim know you love him, and that your grandmother loves him, and that he has a whole assortment of friends and well-wishers who love him and are on his side." He tapped the side of his seat for emphasis. "You can't heal this wound, but you can strengthen the rest of him enough to carry it. And he will."

"I . . ." She buried her head against the steering wheel again. "I just wish . . . he's my _baby_ , Walt. My perfect little boy . . ."

"Yes, well," Walter admitted, "I'm rather a hypocrite in this. I look at that child and think, 'Who could possibly leave this remarkable little creature behind?' But he left you as well, so we know his judgement is sorely lacking."

A snort reverberated against the wheel. "Don't have to butter me up _that_ much, Strickler; if I was going to drive this thing off the cliff, I'd let you out first."

"I'm quite serious, you know." He resisted the urge to take her hand, instead stealing her fries. "You're an exceptional woman, Dr. Lake."

"I'm not a doctor -- "

"Yet." 

"Walt -- "

"And at the risk of sounding terribly condescending, you've no idea how proud I am of you."

In the ensuing silence, he was alarmed to realize this was true.

"Thank you," she eventually replied, turning away from the vista to look him in the eye. "You don't know how much that means to me, coming from you."

"Oh, well -- " Something about those lazurite depths confounded Water, thwarted his ability to spin pleasant aphorisms, to minimize, to meander. "Thoroughly-meant," he muttered, and wished she would look away. She did not, instead leaning closer. His throat seized.

"Walt," she said, her voice low, husky with suppressed emotion, "you've got tomato on your ear."

At which point, spell broken, Walter suggested that she finish her burger and declared what was left of the fries to be fair game. 

"I suppose you'll want to wipe yourself down?" he queried as they pulled up to his apartment building. "Or at least, dispose of your dinner properly?" 

Barbara glanced down at what was left of the hamburger she'd punched. "Hmm. I might need some paper towels." She shook her head, but there was a trace of that old, amused spark in her eye again; the quirk in the corner of her mouth. "Jim does not approve of his mother eating fast food without him."

"Especially not when he's gone to the trouble of making you toast, you ingrate," admonished Walter, holding the entry door open and wincing at his reflection's condiment-streaked pompadour.

"He's actually gotten pretty good at sandwiches," Barbara conceded, following Walter up the stairs. Distantly, it occurred to him that he'd never asked her how she'd discovered his address, but he supposed it wasn't pressing. He'd done more detective work to find her out, after all. 

Had it really been over a year since a boy dropped marmalade at his feet, and almost a year since a woman poured tea down his jumper? Strange to think. But time ran away from one -- 

A sudden thought occurred to Walter and he rapped a quick tattoo on his apartment door. "Home again, home again," he chirped as he rattled the keys just a little too loudly. "And no pigs purchased, as we didn't go to market."

Barbara chuckled. "Was that the code for whoever's lurking in there to cheese it?"

He dropped the keys. " _Wha_ \-- ha! Yes, time enough to hide the body in the Murphy bed, and for all parties to don underwear." Mercifully, as he could see unhindered through the darkness, any goblins that might have been present had taken the hint. He flipped on the light with an exaggerated sigh. "Behold, my den of iniquity. Mind the teacups."

She managed -- just -- to avoid knocking over the open box of china on the entry table (Walter made a note to have some Words with Fragwa re: placement of breakable material). "Whoops. What was that you were saying about bulls?" She glanced inside with interest. "These were your aunt's?"

Walter crossed to the kitchen, hoping the porcelain of Alexander III would survive proximity to Barbara Lake long enough for him to get the paper towels. "I've been sorting through her personal effects. Most came to me, favored nephew that I was."

When he had stopped over in New York, a sizable portion of Korshas's treasures had been left there to be sorted through and disseminated through the usual channels. All the same, Walter had a few connections and leads on the West Coast that he'd been surreptitiously pursuing, as well as a few Midwestern collections towards which he'd made overtures -- not as Walter Strickler, of course. In the meantime, he'd been enjoying the company of a few hitherto-unknown Rublevs, an enameled box owned by some member or other of the Palaiologoi, and the viola d'amore. He'd be sad to see them go, but it wouldn't be the first time circumstances forced him to part with things of beauty. Hopefully, it might be the last.

Barbara, long-limbed and curious, peered at the icon of the Hospitality of Abraham -- not the original, but its secret twin -- and with a faint start Walter remembered the unicorn necklace was still in his possession as well. He'd not known what to do with it, though for a crazed moment he thought he did; he dismissed this flight of fancy. A card and wine.

"I like this," she said after a long moment of contemplation. "This was your Aunt Tillie's?"

"Yes," he lied, wetting a length of towel and daubing his hair.

"She was . . . Russian?"

"From somewhere in Eastern Europe." That, at least, was probably broadly true. "She was a woman of tastes both unconventional and Orthodox."

Either Barbara didn't get the joke or she refused to acknowledge it. "I wish I could have met her."

"You'd have gotten on well, I think." Again, he was surprised by the realization that this was probably true. "You share many of the same characteristics: resourcefulness, protectiveness -- "

"What was her husband like?"

"Also absent, and good riddance." He'd never cared for the old fool's pontificating and bellicose fits of self-importance. The fondest memory he had of his uncle was that of watching him choke to death on a fishbone.

"Hmm." Barbara's gaze fell to the viol, momentarily wistful. "I remember this . . ." She bent down to get a closer look at the scroll, carved with the head of a blindfolded maiden. "But not _this_. Kind of, uh -- "

Walter passed her the towel. "Risqué? I assure you, it's merely a fairly standard representation of Love."

The woman smiled again, lips forming a graceful bow. "Blind, you mean?"

"Yes," replied Stricklander. "Blind."

 

_Saturday night_

 

Walter knew a sulking child when he saw one, so he took a leisurely path towards the bar, pausing as if to inspect the unclad David (always Michelangelo and never Bernini, he lamented), drifting past the dessert table and its flat tiramisu, hovering at the fringes of a group where popular television was being discussed, attempting not to hover by the fringes of a different group where various women were advising Barbara to 'get her groove back', glancing at one of those appalling new digital jukeboxes glowing malevolently by the coat check, and finally sitting down and ordering a pinot noir from the distracted college student who was ostensibly serving drinks when not texting.

He sipped his wine, back turned to the empty booth with tennis shoes faintly visible underneath the skirt of the tablecloth, and observed that the 'hand-carved back bar' touted on the review seemed to be mostly badly-stained plywood less indicative of 'Old-World pub' than it was 'repurposed props from budget Renaissance Festival'. Of more interest was the scale of this space; a large, solid foundation, with room for growth --

Something tugged on his sleeve. "Jim. Always a pleasure. Enjoying yourself?"

"I'm bored," Jim announced, clambering onto the stool closest to Walter. "Everyone here is talking about grown-up stuff."

"Really? I found the conversation somewhat juvenile." He glanced at a sign posted by the door, then at the bartender, who seemed preoccupied with her phone. "Technically, children aren't allowed in the bar area."

Jim gave him a look of misery. "I don't wanna go back there. Lexi wants to play doctor -- "

"Oh --"

"-- she says she knows where the cuts go, but you're not supposeda do it with a _eating_ knife." Jim eyed the popcorn machine appraisingly.

" _Oh_. Well. Disturbing for an entirely different set of reasons." Walter took the hint and dished out some popcorn, setting it between them. "Do you not get on well with Lexi?"

Jim mashed a handful into his face. "She says you can't hit a girl."

"One shouldn't, as a general rule." Granted, he could name more than a few exceptions.

"But she punches hard."

"Ah. The unfair sex." Walter took a long sip from his glass. "Have you tried taking it up with her father?"

"He just says we both need to stop. But I didn't do anything!" Jim threw up his small arms in despair. "It's not fair." He laid his head on the counter in a more than slightly theatrical fashion. "I never get to do what I want." Jim's eyes flicked speculatively towards the row of bottles behind the bar.

"Life's not fair," commiserated Walter. "Once, I frequented the best salons in Paris; now I'm drinking with grade-schoolers." He glanced at Jim. "What'll you have?"

"Beer."

"No."

"Two beers."

"I'm getting you a ginger ale."

"Will it make me drunk?"

"If it does, you've got bigger problems than Lexi's tender ministries." Walter flagged down the barkeep, wondering for a moment if Jim's presence would be commented upon. It was not. 

Jim insisted that they clink glasses. "Dames," he sighed, and attempted to knock back a slug of his soda. Walter nearly choked from laughter.

"'Dames'? What on earth, Jim Lake."

"I saw it in a movie." Jim had managed to spill most of his drink down the front of his shirt. "There was a guy and he was a detective and a lady tried to make him do stuff -- "

"The classic noir plot." He caught Barbara's eye for a brief moment across the room, then redirected his attention to his drink. "Nothing but trouble."

"I wish there were no girls," Jim said, trying for another worldly swig of his imagined bourbon. "They're mean. Except Mom," he added conscientiously. 

"And your grandmother, presumably."

"And Toby's Nana," Jim admitted. "All other girls are gross. Oh, and Claire from school. But all other girls, gross."

Walter suspected another drink was in order. "What's so non-gross about Claire?"

Jim made a noise of vague distress. "I dunno. She just is."

Ah, thought Walter. "Jim, it's not a shot glass; stop that. You're getting drenched."

"Dames," growled his companion. "Is this a nightclub?"

"Sadly, no." Walter noted the piano in a corner by some artificial arbor vitae. "Properly speaking, someone would be tickling those ivories, with a torch singer extending an open invitation to the blues."

Jim followed his gaze with interest, launching himself off the stool. Walter sighed, left a tip, then ambled over to where the boy was lifting the lid, his hands just poised to rain down a thunderclash of chords. "Best not," he remarked, sitting next to him on the bench. "I take requests."

"Gun Robot!"

The old thing was out-of-tune, of course, though not as badly as Walter had initially feared. Jim spent the next three minutes angrily correcting his half-remembered (deliberately-forgotten) rendition of Love Theme from Gun Robot (Reprise) before he was able to segue into some of Chopin's Études, a smattering of Shostakovich's better piano concertos, bits of the Great Gate of Kiev, and then they really did get bored.

"What's the waitress practicing?" Jim demanded from the other end of the scale, where he was helpfully mashing keys. "Is that, like, a game?"

"The only game in town," Walter retorted. "Good evening," he added as a familiar shadow fell across them both, and ran a few bars of the Birthday Song.

"So, you do play." Barbara leaned against the top of the piano. "Don't let me stop you."

"As I stated to Younger Atlas, I take requests." He looked up languidly at her, revising his opinion of the dress; whatever its sartorial deficiencies, it had certain charms when she stretched just so against a darker surface. "What's the lady's pleasure?"

"We went to the bar," Jim announced proudly. "And talked about girls."

Barbara's expression indicated that she wasn't sure what to do with this information. "Huh. Walter? Why is my son's shirt wet?"

"He has a drinking problem." 

"Har-de-har." Barbara beckoned her son over, inspecting his shirt. "Ugh. Jim, you're sticky."

"Walter bought me beer."

"This is soda, goofball." She sighed. "We talked about this, honey. No drinking like a private eye, it just gets everywhere. Come on, let's get you cleaned up -- "

"I'm okay, Mom," Jim insisted. "I can do it." He hopped off the edge of the bench, expertly weaving through the tables towards the restroom. Lexi saw him halfway through and made a beeline in his direction, but luckily he made it through the door marked 'signori' in time.

"He's a good boy, really," Walter remarked, not for the first time nor for the last. "Never a dull moment."

"I hope you didn't feel like you had to babysit, again." She sat down on the vacated end of the bench next to Walter. "Having a good time?"

"It never hurts to get out every so often," he said. "Anyway, Jim has been telling me about his problems with women."

"I know he doesn't like Lexi very much," she admitted. "It's just, Brent usually picks them up together, and sometimes they seem to get along, but they bicker a lot, too." A sigh. "I don't like the way she bosses him around."

"I expect you've said something to her father?" 

Barbara nodded, shifting a little on her end of the keys. "Mama's Boy versus Daddy's Girl. Unstoppable force and immovable object." She shifted again. "Mrs. Domzalski has offered to have Jim over after school; I think he might like that more. It's just . . . hard, when you have work friends who are also single parents. You feel like you should band together."

"Ah. Trauma bonding." Walter meandered into variations on 'Barbara Allen'. 

"Speaking of trauma, should you even be playing right now?" She glanced with concern at his bandaged hand. 

"It's just the thumb, really. Takes more than than to put me out of commission."

"Where have I heard that before." Barbara reached over, stilling his hand and turning it palm-upwards. "Looks like it stayed put," she said of her work with evident satisfaction. "How's it feeling?"

"Better, thanks to you."

She scoffed. "All I did was re-wrap it." Her hands were still pressed lightly against the sides of the bandage, their subtle current thrumming against it. Would other humans sense that understated magic pulsing against their skin, he wondered, or was this something that only a troll would recognize? Did Barbara know it of herself? 

"I think the additional step might've sped things along," he said, as though from a great distance.

"Good." Her smile was as quiet as her voice; crushed velvet.

Her _eyes_. He should not be staring. She should not be staring back. He should take his hand away, say something light and meaningless and divert the course of this river and she was still staring and her hand was still on his and --

A guitar riff suddenly sputtered into being from the speaker mounted directly over the piano and Walter jolted back into his right mind, his gaze focusing on it instead of the ridges in her irises. " _What on earth_ \-- ?"

"Barb!" Their attention was drawn to the edge of the room, where Brent and several others were loading the pulsing jukebox with tokens. "Hey! C'mere, they've got the good stuff -- "

"Huh," she said in an undertone. "So much for live music, I guess." She bit her lip. "This takes me back. Do you like this song?"

_Won't you please let me go / These words lie inside they hurt me so_

"I'm . . . afraid I'm not familiar with it," Walter confessed, unmanned and suddenly old. He drew his hand from hers, watching her recoil slightly as though shocked. "After my time, I expect."

Barbara frowned, as though confused. "Uh, not unless -- "

"Barb!" yelled someone else. "C'mon, we're taking a picture!"

"In a minute!" she called. "Walt, I -- I wanted to say, about the other night -- "

"There's nothing to say," he responded. "You were most kind."

"No, I really need to -- "

"Barb!" Brent whooped. "Connie! Matt! Get your butts over here!"

"You'd best go," Walter said, patting her hand and turning back to the piano. "They need you." He placed his hands on the keyboard as though to play, though there really was no point.

_And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you / Just what you want me to_

She exhaled. "Okay." Sliding off the edge of the bench, it seemed for a moment as though her hand would graze Walter's shoulder, and he found himself braced for the streak of lightning it would drag across its length, but her course corrected itself and he was left straining into empty air, cheated. 

Barbara crossed the mostly-empty floor, tripping slightly from lack of practice on heels. A spot lamp overhead set the reds in her hair ablaze against the crushed emerald hues of the dress, just for a moment, and nothing quarried from the depths of the earth ever gleamed just so. Then she was just another human in a pack of humans, laughing and jostling and talking; flesh that lived and moved and had its being.

He closed the cover of the piano, deposited the wineglass on the bar, and drifted towards the back exit, the jukebox's taunt following him out.

_I've lost you, I've lost you, I've lost you, I've lost you, I've lost you_

 

_Sunday morning_

 

"You've lost me," Ade said flatly. "A -- restaurant?"

"Yes," Walter responded crisply, fiddling with his bandages. "I'm making the relevant inquiries; Fragwa should get his paws on the blueprints soon enough. But it's a good, solid below-ground footprint, and it's on the far end of town. The other location I'd been considering -- the travel agency? -- would require far more time and money to renovate to our liking."

The other Changeling pursed his lips thoughtfully, clearly studying the address Walter had provided him. "Well, I shall certainly let you know what I discover about it. Of course, that largely depends on whether the property goes up for sale -- "

"Oh, that's easy enough to arrange," scoffed Walter. "Really, Ade, don't play the innocent." He leaned back in his chair. "Sooner or later, everything succumbs to fire."

 

_Friday, before the dawn_

 

"Does it burn? Any stinging?"

Walter shook his head. "Just sore, where it isn't numb." He did not add that her fingers would likely mitigate any pain he would have otherwise felt. "Clumsy of me to have unraveled this so quickly . . ."

He heard Barbara make a sound of disgust from where she was bent over his hand. "Meyers can't bandage something to save his life, I swear. Or anyone else's." She finished affixing it with a look of vague satisfaction, then -- and it was strange to see how easily, how evenly, as though it were nothing at all in the world -- she planted a kiss atop his hand. "There. Makes it heal faster." She smiled. "According to Jim, anyway."

"Remind me to thank him," he thought he said, though at the moment the pounding in his ears made it impossible to be sure.

Barbara stood up, dusting herself off. "Well. Thanks for the towels, and for . . . well, for the reality check. I guess Jim and I will get through it together, whatever happens." She grabbed her keys from his kitchen counter. "See you tomorrow night?"

"Hmm? That is -- yes. Yes, if you're not sick of me by then."

She laughed. "Not likely. Goodnight, Walt. Sweet dreams." 

"You, too," he responded vaguely, feeling the apartment grow several degrees colder and darker as she retreated across his threshold and into the hall, straining to hear every last footfall on the stair, the sound of a car being started and driven away into the night. 

Slowly, he looked to his re-bandaged hand. She didn't wear lipstick to work; no indelible trace remained to bear testimony to -- to -- 

The porcelain crashed merrily to the floor. 

 

_Sunday afternoon_

 

Walter looked up in panic as something slammed through his office door. "What is the meaning of -- "

"You're a very hard man to get a hold of, Mr. Strickler," Ms. Janeth sang, casting a long shadow through the interior of the room, where Walter had been noodling morosely through some Billie Holiday numbers at the piano. "Did you read any of my texts?"

He was in no mood. "If you recall, teachers are advised not to -- "

"Never mind, never mind. 'You must bear with me: Pray you now, forget and forgive -- '"

Walter rose sharply from his bench. "Ms. Janeth, I really must insist that you leave me be." He crossed to his desk, sitting down behind it in the hopes that it would seem physically imposing. "I've had a very difficult few days -- "

But the woman could not be daunted."Mr. Strickler," she said, her tone growing stern, eyes level with his. "I've been trying to be subtle about it, but since you've been so cagey I'm just going to come right out and ask -- "

" _No_!" Walter snapped. 

Ms. Janeth's mouth hung open. "But I haven't even -- "

"The answer is no."

She took a step back, recoiling slightly -- then leaned back in. "But, such delivery! Such force of personality, such, such _rage_ \-- "

"Ms. Janeth, I would kindly ask you to -- " Something about her reaction to his answer struck Walter as baffling, and he interrupted himself long enough to ask, " -- explain what you mean by that, exactly?"

She sighed, shoulders slumping forward dramatically. "I need a leer, Mr. Strickler."

Walter blinked, then -- still confused -- bared his teeth at her, though indisposed towards anything that could be misconstrued as genuinely salacious.

Ms. Janeth's expression was one of perplexed annoyance. "No, a _Lear_. As in, 'King Lear'? The Drama department keeps saying that you can't pull it off with a cast of teenagers, but if I can get just one adult for the main role, I know it will work!" She raised her fists in the air. "And _you_! You're perfect. Ever since I caught your lecture, I thought: that man's the keystone for the whole play. 'Ay, every inch a king!'"

Relief and exasperation buffeted him in waves. "I'd prefer Kent, myself," he replied somewhat weakly. 

"Kent? A beginner role if ever there was one." Ms. Janeth waved an impatient hand. "Really, most actors would give their right leg to get a chance to play Lear! At least say you'll think about it. We've got two more weeks before the end of school, and then the Shakespeare Summer Program starts casting." She gave him an appraising look. "I don't think we'd need to age you up too much . . ."

"I'm not an actor, Ms. Janeth," he retorted, resentful that he was vaguely considering her offer. "And I'm hardly a poor old man, as full of grief as age --"

"Oh, and you even know the lines!" She clapped her hands delightedly. "Excellent. A seasoned hand can bring out the best in an amateur production." Her gaze grew sharp again. "The next big hurdle is casting the Fool; finding a teenager who can get it just right -- "

A flash of inspiration struck Walter and he heard himself saying, "Marcus Robinson? He's a class cut-up, but he's got depth and something to prove."

"Aha! You see! The Fool knows his King, but the teacher knows his student. Poetic, really." She twisted her hands in delight. "So, you'll come try out?"

Walter ran a bandaged hand across his face. This was the last thing he needed. And yet . . . 

"I expect I'll have some more free time opening up, for a little while at least," he said, as though the realization didn't twist his innards. "I'll let you know."

"Excellent!" She slapped him heartily on the arm. "I'll see you on the great stage of fools!"

 

_too soon, too late_

 

One knows things that one does not know, of course.

The way humans thought magic worked was with words, which was why they were so bad at it -- and yet, were they? To describe a thing is to circumscribe it, to ensnare and enslave. Names. Concepts. Realities. Unfortunately, sometimes to describe a thing was to lose power over it, to be trapped by a realization that could never again recede into formlessness.

In the dark of Stricklander's being, he had known for some time. In the lit interior of Walter Strickler, it was a terrifying revelation.

Everything chafed, or itched, or hurt in this world, and this was the better of the two he inhabited. One became accustomed to it. One expected it. Pain was a familiar constant; you scourged and were, in turn, scourged. That was what it was to be a Changeling. 

Barbara didn't hurt. Her company was blessed relief, balm for whatever he had of a soul. Barbara hurt. He welcomed it.

Oh, but it was blind, this thing, this monstrous thing that his suddenly fragile self-conception demanded remain unnamed, lest all traps close in his flesh and his designs come to nothing. 

This was not a thing that could be, and therefore was not, and his mind would not allow itself to trace these contours or dwell on any future except the one he'd bent his will towards for his entire life. There was nothing to acknowledge or name, and the nights rolled on regardless, as they had for centuries now. 

 

_Sunday night/Monday morning_

 

But when the hesitant knock came at his door -- at yet another godless hour when the body and spirit cease to be on speaking terms -- even though he knew that the best thing (and it would be the best thing, he knew better) was to feign sleep or silence, he found himself unlatching the chain before even bothering to check who it was. 

"Good evening, Ms. Lake. Start-of-shift or end?"

"End," she said, voice somewhat muted. "Am . . . am I bugging you, Walt?" She peeked around the apartment, gaze once again falling on the icon, the angels and/or triune Godhead gleaming serenely outside the tyranny of time.

"I was up, anyway. Papers to grade, what with school over at the end of the month -- "

"That's not exactly what I meant," she exhaled, slowly. 

"Oh. Oh, please tell me he finally got back to you about the child support -- "

"No, it's not about _that_." Barbara hesitated. "Walt, what you said before . . . about your co-worker -- "

"Oh, it's all right," Walter replied, danger signs flashing. "She doesn't have romantic designs on me. She's a thespian."

"Oh."

"Granted, she wants to cast me in a play, but amateur dramatics aren't quite -- "

"Walt." Her voice wasn't raised, yet it cut through his protestations as if howled from a battlement. "Can I just . . . I know it's a personal thing, and if it crosses a line, you don't need to answer -- "

"Barbara -- "

"You're gay, right?"

It was such an elegant solution, said the small voice that always managed to keep pedaling whenever the rest of his mind fell over. It wasn't even anything he hadn't implied in previous lives. It solved so many problems. It allowed so much latitude. It required nothing of him and she would not judge and there would still be tea and conversation --

\-- he wasn't even human, it was a category error any way you sliced it --

"Because," she said, a hand on his arm, "I hope . . . I hope you'd trust me enough to say so, but either way, it's fine, just . . . _please_. Don't . . ."

He licked his lips, which alerted him to the fact his mouth was open. "'Don't . . ?'"

"If we're friends, we're friends, and that's all that matters," she said, and in spite of the tremor in her voice there was a surgical ruthlessness next to it. "I can do that. That's fine. But I don't want to be anybody's beard." She folded her arms self-consciously. "Once was enough."

"I . . ." Say yes. Just say yes. "I think you may have . . ." Or allude to it, but don't get too literary, you don't have to out-Wilde Wilde, just cold hells, Stricklander, _say yes_ \-- 

\-- in time, in small fits and spurts, less of that tea, that conversation, and Brent would eventually suggest something, and she would deliberate in front of Walter, and go out to Italian casual dining restaurants where endless breadsticks were touted as an intrinsically-rewarding state of gastronomic affairs, and she would still smile at him, but not from the depths of those maddening Virgin's blue eyes.

"I'm . . . not." Not that it could be said to matter in relation to humans, not that it ever had before, but why did he keep repeating that to himself, "Just solitary."

It wasn't exactly skepticism in her eyes, but it was the stare of one who was used to making diagnoses. "Aren't you lonely?" she asked at length.

"No." He folded his own arms, their stances mirroring. 

"Then why -- " Barbara broke off, turning her head rapidly away. There was a tightness to her throat that he was all too aware of, and he glanced away himself, furious and abashed. 

"You keep looking at me like _that_ ," she said, voice controlled, low. "Like you could eat me. Don't tell me I'm imagining it."

He could have screamed, _then don't force me into a corner where I have to_ , instead chuckling nervously, "Barbara, if I didn't when you were covered in actual condiments -- "

" _Walt_." Her voice became a ragged whisper. "If -- if you're not stringing me along just to pass as straight, if it's not some dumb power trip, if we're real friends, you can't look at me like that and not -- I mean -- " Her breath grew momentarily unsteady; Walter was feeling dangerously faint himself, "-- is it because the divorce isn't final? Is it because I'm a single mother? The hours? Living with my grandmother?"

"No, nothing like that -- " He wasn't sure if this was an admission of anything. He wasn't sure of anything, anymore. "Barbara, you and I have very different lives -- "

"How different could they be?" 

His mouth hung open. "Where do I _start_? Barbara, really, I'm flattered, so flattered, but -- "

"'But?'"

"But I'm old, Barbara."

"Walt, you're forty -- "

"I'm old in the soul, far too old." And far too cruel, and too cowardly, and his troth already pledged to a very different Pale Lady, and this had to end, it had to end, it was agony and it had to end or he would end. "And you're only really casting about here because you think it's safe."

Her eyes widened (oh, those blues; never again in all the cold world) and she staggered as though struck. "I . . . what?"

He'd said worse things to worse ends; inflicted worse wounds than this, surely. "You're just out of a relationship that eviscerated you and you're trying to get back on the horse. To prove to yourself you've still got it. But you're scared."

"Walt -- "

He folded his arms tighter. "You're afraid to take a risk after so long out of the game, so you're talking yourself into something you know you'll regret -- but something you can afford to regret, because it won't hurt. Or matter." Run her off. It's too late for salvage, now.

"How could you think -- " Her voice flooded, drowning her words. "How -- "

Stricklander was well and truly adept at burying a knife. He greatly preferred to do it in the back for reasons of expediency and cleanliness, but oh, those eyes, they were somehow worse than any of the bewildered stares of the newly-dying, so much worse to betray from the front --

She swallowed, trembling slightly, and then - sharpened. Her eyes were still dangerously brimming with moisture, but the fire was lit behind them and her own knife was out, honed and discerning.

"I'm not afraid," she retorted, the softness not absent from her voice but no longer its dominant component. " _You're_ afraid." 

Walter Strickler, a polite fiction expertly wielded by Stricklander until recently, trembled, the strings of his mask tangled hopelessly around the grooves of a stone heart. And he realized, in one moment of horrific clarity, what he feared from Barbara: not her sharpness, but her absence. His world going darker around the edges, colder, never quite to regain the luster she lent it.

"I'm a fraud," he said. "I met all the Muses, but never Venus." He took a step closer. "I don't have the art for this."

"I don't need a poem," she whispered. 

"You deserve one," he stammered, his nerve shriveling, the words intended for the killing blow unable to form as they should. "And -- oh, dear Barbara, you deserve better, so much better -- "

"You keep telling me what I deserve. I'm telling you what I want."

Unaccountably, they had moved nearer to one another, but the remaining space between them seemed a gulf of darkness. If he leaned any closer, he wondered, would he be lashed to shreds by whatever subtle lightning Barbara exuded, some electromagnetic field meant to keep away radiation, rogue satellites, monsters?

He swallowed. Well, old monster?

It was graceless. If there was any consolation to be found, it was that it was mutually graceless. An awkward bumping of facial features: the brush of her cheek against his chin, dueling noses. It took him a frantic moment to remember that no, she was human, how had he forgotten that, what had she disabled in him that he forgot that -- 

\-- oh, but if she had horns to hook with his --

Emboldened (paradoxically) by despair, he moved to kiss her, except she had already pulled away. But her hand snaked up to the side of his face, fingers ghosting over the ridge of his cheekbone, electricity pooling under their tips. He sighed, leaning into the touch, closing his eyes. On the other side of his face, another hand, another shivery calling-card. A completed circuit.

"Walt. What do _you_ want?" 

"Impossible things," he murmured, knowing the world would end if he opened his eyes. 

"How impossible." Her voice seemed so close, now. 

"You could scarcely believe, my dear."

"You called me 'my darling', once." The faintest of exhalations could be felt by the edge of his mouth. "Did you mean it?"

He slowly opened his eyes. 

Nothing happened.

. . . which is to say, nothing in the continual set of balances and counterbalances and permutations and plotting and perpetual self-chronicalling that kept the inner workings of the troll Stricklander afloat were permitted to function normally in that moment. Meanwhile, Walter Strickler leaned forward and kissed her.


	5. rex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Walter Strickler enters into humanity.

_By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done / To pluck me by the beard_

 

Stricklander had tried his hand at many occupations over the long centuries, but he'd never been an actor. Changelings, he had long held, had no business in that profession, and those who had tried treading the boards never seemed quite convincing to him. To succeed in long-term infiltration amongst humans, it was far easier to start with a cleaned-up version of one's existing personality and calibrate as the situation demanded. Pretending to be someone else altogether got you caught the instant something unexpected occurred; crises required reactions that were organic and believable. Fiction that could not breathe too readily yielded a truth that would bleed.

The merits of this approach had been challenged by the Janus Order's best theoreticians for years, with many arguing that it was more useful to craft a completely new and unique persona for each installation. Most of those luminaries were now dead; Walter smugly felt that was a useful data point in regard to the supposed efficacy of _dramatics_.

In short, Walter Strickler was not much more of an act than Stricklander was. Neither of him particularly enjoyed wearing a beard, either.

"I'm not entirely certain that Lear is mentioned as having one," he protested towards the general vicinity of the audience (whoever was working the electrical booth seemed to be testing out avant-garde theories of high-contrast lighting, or possibly didn't understand where the controls were located). "Is this strictly necessary? It seems rather a cheap visual shorthand -- "

An indignant and (sadly, now) familiar squawk cut his complaint short. "Oh, for -- Mr. Strickler, if you don't want to wear it, you can always take matters into your own hands." The sound of pages rustling led his attention to the wings, where his director was skimming through Act One with a highlighter and a vengeance. "Grow your beard out."

Walter unhooked the ragged polyfill abomination from his face, spitting out fibers. "I have no interest in organic cultivation of props, Ms. Janeth," he responded wearily. "It would take me far too long -- "

"Ah, and your lady friend would object, I'm sure," she said with a knowing chuckle. "Say no more!" Walter was rapidly becoming nostalgic for that brief period when he was convinced that she harbored a tendre for him; it seemed like a comparatively simple time. "But no, the beard is non-negotiable, as per Act Four, Scene Six, where Lear himself says --"

"He's speaking metaphorically."

Walter had initially agreed only to read for Lear, but had no real intention of going through with the play beyond an audition. As with so many things of late, circumstances had spiraled out of his control: now here he was, destined to be a madman on a heath, with an itching face to boot.

His newly-cast Fool glanced up at him from his own script. "You got a _girlfriend_ , Mr. Strickler?" Marcus ducked his head with a derisive snort. "Wow. At least we know she's into history."

"'Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes'," Walter retorted. "Speaking of which, where are our daughters?" He glanced into the seats -- or attempted to, as the unforgiving lights attempted to sear his retinas into oblivion. "Tryouts for the sisters are today, correct?"

"Beats me, nuncle."

"That's overly-familiar, Mr. Robinson."

"I'm in-character, nuncle." The boy looked up again at the sound of approaching footsteps, prompting Walter to turn and greet the presumptive actress. 

Drew Calvillo -- American History, second period -- met his stare with a nervous cough. "Uh. Hi. This is the play tryout?"

Ms. Janeth emerged from stage right, waving her clipboard distractedly. "Yes, but you'll want to come back at one; we're casting girl parts right now. Connor," she added, pivoting to address an unseen entity behind the glare of the spotlight, "I told you, the bank switches are clearly marked --" 

Drew shifted from foot to foot. "Um. I'm actually trying out for . . . I'm trying out for Cordelia."

There was a profound silence. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Walter could see Ms. Janeth mouthing empty phrases in temporary astonishment. The other eye spied an Albany and Edmund about to break into sniggers and thus he straightened up, quickly. "You are aware that Lear is quite a combative character, and that I intend to play him as such?" He positioned himself in front of Marcus, just in case.

"We're -- " Ms. Janeth was obviously still attempting to re-calibrate from this new development. "That is -- well, obviously there's precedent for this sort of thing, but obviously we'd reserve the role for an actual --"

Drew's face was already ashen. "I mean . . . I was just kidd -- "

Unbelievably, Marcus came to the defense, turning a bored handstand. "C'mon, Ms. J. No girls showed up anyway, and we gotta start practicing, right?"

"Exactly." Walter closed the gap between himself and Drew in two quick strides. "I'd like to see what you can do with this, but I want you to be prepared, Mr. Calvillo," he said in an undertone. "Give it your all."

His student's expression underwent a series of intense and subtle changes. "Yeah. Okay. I mean -- okay." 

"Well . . ." Ms. Janeth faltered for a moment, then scowled. "Connor! Bring the lights down, I can smell my hair burning!"

 

 

_A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats_

 

To call Otto Scaarbach a friend was to stretch the definition of the word into near-meaninglessness. 

Long ago, the Lady Pale had seen fit to bestow certain gifts upon Gunmar as a gesture of . . . well, presumably good faith, though Her motives were frequently inscrutable. One of these treasures was the knowledge of how to twist young trollflesh into beings that could walk undetected in daylight. 

Walter and Otto belonged to the same run of Changelings, by most reckonings. The preceding and immediately-following batches were long-extinct due to some rather unfortunate magical instabilities employed in their creation; Gumm-Gumm shamans attempting to alter the formulae of Argante's spell realized too late that while She provided gifts, She never explained Her tricks -- the hallmark of any good magician.

Fortunately, Walter, Andrei and Otto were members of the gap generation whose enchantments held stable (and in Scaarbach's case, proved unexpectedly prodigious), and whose template came to serve as the baseline standard for all future Changelings. Unfortunately, that original cohort was steadily dwindling. The centuries had not been kind, and Bular even less so. And -- of course --

\-- no, he told himself severely, and held the _trenches_ at bay. Not a crack in the mask, not in front of Otto. 

His companion of old sniffed speculatively at the air as they stepped out of the car. "Too much sun. Bad for the eyes." He swapped out his spectacles for a pair of circular black sunshades, prompting Walter to sigh.

"I can't think how you managed on the dig if you're complaining about the sun _here_ ," he remarked, though less pointedly than he might have done. Their last meeting in the flesh (so to speak) had been more hostile than he intended, and he had to concede that Andrei's oversights had contributed to his death and the loss of the stones as much as Otto's blunder. _There are so few of us who remember the world before the Battle of Killahead; once we're gone . . ._

His comrade-in-arms pulled the brim of his hat lower, peering at the facade of the restaurant. "It was not to my taste, either. Regrettable that circumstances demand we set up here, instead of somewhere cooler -- "

"You can always file your complaints with our employer, but he doesn't exactly have a say in the matter, either." Walter held open the door to Giovanni's in a gesture of exaggerated civility. "After you."

Even with the shades on, it was easy to discern that Otto's expression was one of bewilderment. Walter had refrained from describing the restaurant's decor in any great detail, knowing that words would fail to do it justice. "Why -- why does -- " 

"The boxer shorts? A concession to virtue, no doubt." Otto's glance fell wordlessly at the other statue of David, sans apparel. "Don't think about it too hard, old man. They didn't."

Grim perusal of the lunch menu led Walter to order salad, while his associate debated endlessly between a wood-fired pizza and spaghetti. He asked for recommendations, but Walter declined. "I'm sure whatever you order will delight," he said, adding silently, _because you still eat cats._

They talked idly over their meal: sport, local politics, an watercolor exhibit seen recently, an opera worth remembering. Walter almost brought up his own induction into the performing arts, but managed to divert himself in time. Otto, as suspected, welcomed his charred pizza with more enthusiasm than Walter could muster for his own anemic greens, and was fairly brimming with _gemütlichkeit_ after the second glass of wine. 

"I can't remember the last time we enjoyed such a good meal together," he remarked, wetting his finger and swabbing under his plate to catch some wayward crumbs. "Lifetimes ago, it seems?"

"Constantinople," Walter replied.

"Ach. No, the food was terrible -- "

"But the view was everything worth remembering." His gaze fell on another questionable fresco, its unconvincing pastels momentarily resurrecting a memory of figs and cheese, resinous wine, the domes of Hagia Sophia and the Holy Apostles gleaming in the last light of a sun disappearing into the black of the Marmara, a salty breeze ruffling his hair as they sat on Andrei's rooftop --

Otto scraped his fork across his plate, slurping up a ribbon of sauce. "Dead empires, _mein Freund_." He smirked. "You were always sentimental."

"Hardly." His mood gone sour, Walter threw his napkin onto the table, attempting to make eye contact with a member of the staff. "Dinner's on me -- this time. Don't want to rack up anything on the accounts, after all."

"Yes, Ade is making such noises. He wouldn't let me use the airline miles for this, said we needed it for emergencies!" Otto scoffed. "We have enough to bring the entire Order here three times over -- "

"It pays to be stingy, sometimes," Walter said absently, debating whether the indifferent service warranted twenty percent. "One could never accuse him of being inattentive to detail."

His companion fell silent, brow furrowing. They did not speak for some time after they left the restaurant, idly passing the ailing travel agency with its weary-looking secretary peering hopefully at them out of the windows. After a degree of surreptitious inspection, they stopped for coffee, Walter stifling sudden and inexplicable feelings of territoriality as the familiar sign of the cafe loomed. At least Otto didn't want to sit outside; that would have been perverse, somehow.

"Well?" Walter asked at length, after they'd each downed a cup. "Thoughts?"

The other Changeling scratched his head thoughtfully. "The space was very large, yes. It would be easy enough to adapt, perhaps over three years . . ?" His shifty eyes glanced off to the sides of their booth with habitual suspicion, but the lunch rush had not yet subsided enough for their words to carry. "Assuming, of course, our _employer_ has no objections."

"I can't think why he would," Walter retorted. "Details have never been his strong suit; that's where we come in."

Otto giggled, though there seemed to be a note of distinct apprehension in his tone. "Our . . . _other_ patron has no objections?"

Walter snorted in contempt. "I've found that in regards to the Ruinous Mountain, it's best not to indicate that there are options." He raised his cup to his mouth.

" _Nein, so war das nicht gedacht._ " Otto cast another feverish glance around the restaurant, then leaned in closer. " _Her_."

Stricklander aspirated with the wrong set of tubes, spraying coffee across his companion's face. "Wha -- what -- what on earth do you -- "

"Walt?" interjected a sudden and unexpected voice. "Are you choking? Raise your hand if you're choking --"

Lurching halfway around in his seat, he perceived Barbara -- day-old bakery item in one hand, purse in the other -- approaching rapidly from the counter. His mind, bifurcated between the present Otto and nearing human, between Her and _her_ , failed to convey to his hand that it should not be reactively waving in the air just then, prompting Barbara to throw both purse and scone to the ground and wrap her arms around his ribcage.

He would later admit that it was the not the _worst_ set of circumstances under which one could receive the Heimlich Maneuver, given that he was not actually choking. Barbara's arms around his chest invoked a certain thrill he'd almost forgotten existed, though the accompanying abdominal thrusts were slightly less enticing. 

"I -- _oof_! I'm _fine_ , please, Barbara -- " Walter sagged back down into the booth, morbidly aware of the stares of the other occupants of the cafe, as well as Otto's amused expression. "Errghm," he added by way of clarification, as coffee began trickling back down from his sinuses. 

"Sorry," she said, rubbing the dark circles under her eyes, the other hand resting on his shoulder. "Long shift. Might have jumped the gun, there." Straightening, she seemed to notice Otto for the first time. "Whoops. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Walter's already-shaken sensibilities screamed that these two facets of his life must not be allowed to interact -- he'd never have brought Scaarbach here if he'd remembered Barbara's schedule had changed -- but the coughing fit he was currently experiencing thwarted him. 

His companion stood up and clicked his heels together in a rare (for him) show of Teutonic formality. "Good afternoon, Mrs. . ?"

"Barbara. Lake. Hi." She proffered the hand after hastily wiping it on her scrubs. "Nice to meet you, uh -- "

"King." It took every molecule of restraint Walter possessed not to throw the bowl of non-dairy creamer into Otto's smirking face. "Earl King."

"He's a . . . an old friend from university," Walter croaked. 

"Oh!" Barbara seemed genuinely surprised. "I didn't -- I mean, you didn't say anything about having a visitor -- "

"Just passing through," Otto said evenly, though Walter was painfully aware of the scrutiny in his smile. "And what relation do you have to my dear old school chum, Ms. Lake?"

"Oh, uh -- "

"Another friend," Walter interjected, chastely patting Barbara's hand. "And physician, as evidenced by that masterful save." Her hand flinched slightly at his touch, then moved away to pick up her scone. "At any rate," he added hastily, "I hope you've not had too difficult a -- "

But he was interrupted by her phone's ringtone, and she mouthed a goodbye as she shuffled out the door, to his mingled relief and dismay. He adjusted his jacket, forcing himself not to watch her go. "So. Where were we?"

Otto's gaze, however, had followed Barbara's departure. " _Sehr schön_. You have excellent taste in friends, don't you?" He turned back to Walter, his grin carnivorous. 

"Some more than others, clearly," he snapped. "And -- regarding your earlier inquiry -- " He glanced about them, noting that the cafe had mostly returned to normal, "-- that's a discussion for a different venue."

 

_Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law / My services are bound_

 

The Lady was . . . 

. . . the Lady _was_. That was probably as much that could be said of the matter with complete certainty. She was not a troll -- probably -- and might be human -- but then again, perhaps not -- and in terms of influence, She had a thousand eyes but few hands. 

It was a curious and terrible fact that Gunmar the Black feared no one on either side of the world. It was an even more curious and terrible fact that he _listened_ when the Lady Pale had something to say. Respect was not native to his character, but clearly some internal calculus had been run and determined that She was not someone towards whom hostility would be effective -- or survivable. 

She was not part of the Skullcrusher's legions, despite bestowing certain gifts upon him. As far as Stricklander could determine, her primary motivation for doing so was hatred of Merlin, himself the champion of all trolls that stood in opposition to the Gumm-Gumms. Even so, this alliance was a casual one at best; her agenda was Her own, and in looking for new thralls didn't hesitate to recruit from the ranks of their enemies. A number of years ago, some maniac with a grudge against Gunmar had been drafted into her service to murder Trollhunters, and, while terrifyingly adept at this, he'd also destroyed any Changeling unlucky enough to cross his path. 

Fortunately, Angor Rot had not been sighted in centuries. Otto once mentioned that he thought he knew where he might be located, and clarified that he in no way wished to test this theory. Stricklander was largely inclined to agree with him. 

The Lady was similarly inconvenienced. Whether temporally, spatially, or bound in some trap of Merlin's making, Stricklander was unsure, and as with most things pertaining to Her, he hadn't wanted or needed to know much more than that. And then She'd spoken to him. 

Whispers at first, sibilant murmurs. Fragments of dead tongues, lapping against the side of of his ear. It had taken him some time to realize that the gilded conch that he was planning to present to the Holy Roman Emperor was where these voices originated, but he identified whose they were in short order. 

She-of-Many-Names spoke to Stricklander from the nacreous depths of the shell, and he listened. 

 

_Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee_

 

_the goddess in red and blue, fiery and flashing, unclasped her girdle, but the horned beast fell upon her and wrenched her to the ground, cutting its mouth against the burning daylight of her armor. he tore it away, piece by piece, exposed skin, hopeless against his claws, his teeth, and then the sickly-sweet smell of underflesh, an exposed ribcage, the old hunger surfacing, his face buried in the woman's body, lapping and devouring, her hands on his horns, but not pushing him away, drawing him closer, her murmuring voice issuing no curses, no pleas, only adorations --_

Walter Strickler awoke with a sudden snort, limbs flailing across the length of his narrow bed. For a confused space of minutes he regarded the ceiling -- the pattern of light through the blinds, a faint chip in the paint -- before gathering his wits and lurching towards the day. Aforementioned act of lurching was complicated by an unexpected protuberance in his lower half; he glared at it until it subsided. The inferior component of his body promptly wreaked revenge in an adjacent structure and he marveled that somehow, Giovanni's had managed to weaponize salad. 

Ablutions finished, he winced at his reflection in the mirror, noting the bruises about his abdomen and ribs from Barbara's attempted rescue. He sighed, then scowled as his renegade component asserted an opinion re: the good doctor. Troll courting behavior involved certain interpersonal nuances that didn't manifest in human societal norms, at least not in a way Stricklander recognized. Humans would consider many acts of troll affection and/or attraction pointlessly violent and combative. Most trolls said the exact same thing about how the Gumm-Gumms went about it. 

They were _good_ bruises. Walter traced the edge of a purple stain in a moment of wistfulness, then resigned himself to fixing breakfast, preferably devoid of meat. 

Since -- since a certain mutual acknowledgment of this unavoidable aspect of their association -- if it could be called that -- since that ragged morning two weeks ago, his interactions with Barbara had become -- difficult? Presumably that was the word. The ease of mind and effortless companionship that had defined so much of their relationship was now marked with a tinge of hysterical tension, a frisson of uncertainty. Once or twice, he'd taken her hand as they'd walked; once or twice, she'd kissed him. Courtship behavior, but without words denoting any specific agreement or intentions. 

To call Stricklander a seducer was not entirely inaccurate. 

The greater mission had occasionally demanded as much, and he was well aware that his human form was considered handsome by many, his manner soothing, his voice pleasing. To tease, flirt, promise, insinuate -- these things he could manage. Soulful looks, heated glances, passionate embraces, a thousand variations on kisses -- he'd achieved a comfortable degree of skill in these over the years. Stringing along impressionable young maids with influential fathers, preying on the insecurities of merchants' wives who felt ignored by their husbands, bantering insufferably with widowed baronesses, society ladies, bored mistresses, lonely priests -- these had afforded him access to secrets, and secrets were the Janus Order's only true currency. Let Bular seethe and snarl that they were wasting their time; honeyed words had given the Changelings more insights into how to retrieve Killahead Bridge than dire threats and blind searches ever managed.

Walter stared blankly at the bag of muesli on his countertop before hearing a ragged snore from the living room and remembering it was a concession to his guest's odd gastronomic proclivities. Although given the state of his own gut at the moment . . .

Of course, it was one thing to play the part of the seducer, and another thing to follow through to the logical end of seduction. He was well-versed in intercourse with humans, provided it was conversational; anything beyond that was, well, obscene. Stricklander was still a troll, even if disguised as human, even if fond of human conventions, even if able to recognize attractiveness in humans, and even if he generally preferred going about his daily life in human skin. He would admit to sharing many human appetites, but not _for_ humans, either as bedmates or as meals.

Barbara had never been part of any objective, nor did her friendship further any aspect of the Initiative's mission, yet somehow she'd triggered that response in Walter to charm and sympathize and console as though her confidence was somehow necessary. And now, here he was: eight in the morning, eating German roughage, his confused meat-equivalent of gronk-nuks trying to register a vote for xenophilia.

He should have answered her differently than he had; too late now, it seemed. Something was afoot, and whatever it was, his entire emotional landscape would be altered forever by its passing. 

 

_Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie_

Sir Wat Strickland -- a courtier of modest consequence and infinite discretion -- had been fortunate enough to witness many of Shakespeare's plays performed while they were still new. This, sadly, proved meaningless when pitted against nearly five hundred subsequent years of scholarship and reinterpretation, to say nothing of Ms. Janeth's own pedestrian convictions -- though, to be fair, the American high school canon rarely featured works of the Bard without witches, faeries, or teenage suicide; for her to attempt _Lear_ did indicate a certain ambition. 

Surprisingly, this hunger for a challenge had begun to spread throughout the cast. Walter, despite his initial intent to just slavishly reproduce what he could remember of Burbage's performance, had begun infusing a certain manic frustration into the aged king's raving, shading in the frantic terror of a man drowning in himself. His Cordelia, after some trepidation, had thrown herself (?) wholeheartedly into the role, matching him with a pained earnestness and wounded dignity from depths few teenagers could ever hope to summon. His Fool, unbidden, had taken up juggling.

"I just don't know that it's _additive_ to the role," Ms. Janeth said, pacing the stage in a manner better suited to melancholy Danes than math teachers. "It almost seems like _pandering_. If you could stick to emoting, or maybe a cartwheel?"

The subject of her criticism was too busy fishing beanbags out of the hole they'd made in a backdrop. "What?"

In the weeks since casting and the first rehearsals, Walter had unaccountably found himself translating her directorial theories -- such as they were -- to the rest of the cast. "She believes that the juggling may distract from your delivery." He scratched his false beard, itself an unwelcome addition.

"I know my lines," countered Marcus, yanking the beanbag out of the perforated castle wall, as Drew -- who was in Props when not Cordelia -- started to apply packing tape over the tear. "The lines are easy, he's just dunking on everyone that messes with him."

"Arguably, but the Fool requires a certain soulfulness to his portrayal, a shadow of dread under the whimsy." Walter removed the beard, which had begun to encroach into his mouth. "Rather than just whistling in the dark -- "

Ms. Janeth placed her hands on her angular hips. " _Excuse me_ , Mr. Strickler, but _I'm_ interpreting Shakespeare for the purposes of this production." She then proceeded to elaborate on the significance of the Fool's role, which boiled down to everything Walter had been about to say, albeit less coherently and with more hand gestures.

"What's Edmund's deal, anyway?" Hayden Miller (World History, third period) scowled into his notes. "I mean, he just seems to be trolling everyone for kicks."

Walter glanced up, an answer nearly on his lips, but Ms. Janeth beat him there. "Revenge, of course! A young man of noble parentage, but denied his place, seeks to obtain what is rightfully his."

"But -- what about all that stuff with the sisters?" Hayden leafed through his script with an air of annoyance. "And at the end, when he tries to save the king and Cordelia after all that? I mean, if _I_ was gonna get revenge -- "

"I kinda thought there'd be more stabbing in this play," interjected Marcus, unsteadily traipsing past with three beanbags in mid-circuit. "Revenge and stabbing."

Though an abstract partisan of both, Walter felt the need for elaboration. "There's substantially more to Edmund's motivations than reprisals to his family and station, though I admit it's a driving force." He flinched as one of Marcus's projectiles nearly clipped him. "He -- some caution, Mr. Robinson! -- he is well-assured of his own worth, and wants to make his mark on the world. However, that means clearing out the deadwood first."

Ms. Janeth narrowly avoided a rogue beanbag herself. "Again, Mr. Strickler, the consensus on Edmund's motivation is -- " 

The clock struck noon, prompting a mass exodus from the stage and auditorium, scripts hastily tossed into seats as cast and crew went in pursuit of lunch. Walter shot his director a smile of calculated cheer, then deposited his beard next to various rent garments and secret messages. Marcus caught up with him by the door. "Do _you_ think it's a dumb idea?" 

"The juggling?"

"Yeah." The boy's face had a hint of defensiveness in it. "It just seems like -- "

Walter steepled his hands. "I don't agree with Ms. Janeth, if that's what you mean. Your delivery could stand more work, but if you can integrate everything, it'll be a formidable performance." He watched a beanbag slip and roll back down the aisles, stopping to scoop it up. "The secret to juggling, incidentally?"

"Yeah?"

He turned to go, tossing the bag over his shoulder. "It's not catching. It's throwing."

 

_Noble philosopher, your company_

 

Catching up with Barbara had become markedly more difficult in these last few weeks. Aside from the giddy dread which had arisen as a result of acknowledging the elephant in the room, her schedule had undergone a shuffle, and paired with Walter's rehearsals, their meetings had become more haphazard and brief. To the extent that he cherished Barbara's company, this rankled; to the extent that this company would cause problems and was ultimately doomed, it was just as well they were seeing less of each other. Otto had tasks to occupy him, but if their paths crossed again --

"You're a terrible influence on my son, Walter."

These words forced him back into a reality that involved a bench, a taco truck, and Barbara's knee nudging his. "I beg your pardon?"

She wiped pico de gallo from her chin and fixed him with a leaden (slightly baggy-eyed) stare. "You. Terrible. Influence." She began rifling in her dilapidated messenger bag, depositing a book between them. "Jim kept badgering me to tell him the story, so I bought a copy for the house."

Walter picked up _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ , noting the publication date. "Ah, yes. This was a good translation -- "

Barbara snatched the book from his grasp, waving it in his face with motherly disapproval. "Jim got asked what he wanted to be when he grew up as part of a warm-up exercise for school, and he said, and I quote, 'a harlot'. And then when poor Mrs. Gonzales asked him if he knew that was inappropriate, Jim said, 'oh, right, only girls are harlots'." She leaned closer. "Not the kind of phonecall single parents dream about, Walter."

Walter's mandible swayed back and forth in a vague hope of conveying meaning. "I . . . Barbara, you mustn't think --"

"Here I was, beating myself up about what I let him watch, and it was _you_ , all along." She began leafing through the book, a faint curve in the corner of her mouth denoting that forgiveness could be negotiable. "Apparently I don't do the voices right, either. What made you tell him this story, anyway? I kind of thought folktales would be more your style."

"Not quite." Walter hardly considered himself a mythical being, but humanity's bizarre and disjointed misrememberings of the magical world felt personally insulting on some level. "The epic voice is more to my liking; I assumed Jim might feel the same way."

"Good guess," she replied, a flush faintly spreading across her cheeks. She flipped through a few more pages. "This is -- Walter, this is smutty."

"'Smutty'? It's a meditation on legacies and fate and mortality, not -- "

She flipped the book around to face him, finger pointed in accusation at the offending passage: the introduction of Enkidu to his humanity. "Ah. Yes. _That_."

"It actually has the f-word in here," she said, vaguely dazed. "Multiple times? I'm pretty sure you don't get to use the f-word in translations, right?"

Walter coughed. "Well, the peoples of the ancient Fertile Crescent were a surprisingly frank and descriptive lot, as is well-attested in the remnants of their poetry, and given that the stigma towards -- towards -- er -- _coitus_ was not nearly as pronounced as in our contemporary society, it's not exactly wrong."

"Wonder what they read to _their_ kids," she muttered, a trace of blush still lingering. "Can't you just, you know, get euphemistic or something?"

"The euphemisms aren't much better." He sighed. "And trust me, I've been making substitutions for the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ since I first told it to Jim, for my own sake as much as his." Censoring the sexual content in a story about the inescapable and horrifying nature of death so that it could be told to a child; ye gods, but he was becoming American. "Of course, I'll make it up to you."

"Darn straight you will."

"Another taco?"

"Guac on this one. I need to know you're _sorry_."

"I assure you," he purred, "I am nothing if not penitent." He opted to get a similar taco for himself; it would be ungentlemanly to force her to eat alone. "How's the new schedule working out?"

Barbara paused in the act of attacking her food. "Ugh. I mean, it's good to be working more in the day, but I was kind of getting used to the night owl routine. It's thrown a few things off." She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then continued, "At least it's a good excuse for Jim to stay at Mrs. Domzalski's house when Gran-Gran's busy. He and Toby get on way better than he ever did with Lexi." 

Walter managed to hide a smirk behind his taco. "Hmm. I'm sure Brent will cope."

"Hopefully. Maybe he'll figure out that divorced people are allowed to make non-divorced friends." She snorted. "Listen to me. 'Divorced'. Ha! I should be so lucky . . ." A substantial portion of black beans made a break for freedom, capturing the attention of the pigeons clustering on the plaza's statue. "Speaking of friends, you never mentioned anything about Earl staying with you."

"Who? -- oh. Yes, Ot -- _Earl_ was a student of archaeology, just as I was. He's been somewhat more successful, I'm happy to say." He carefully placed his wrapper to the side of him. "I suppose we're friends."

"It was nice to meet him," she replied. "I hope I didn't weird him out too badly, with the whole -- you know -- "

"'Weird' is just up his alley." And any alley containing Otto Schaarbach was a thoroughly undesirable place to find oneself. "He's only passing through town, doing something with cuneiform, if you can believe it." Walter tapped the book in gratitude for the source of this lie, then gestured towards the museum. "Possibly involving those Assyrian steles they've got in the Special Collection."

"That sounds amazing," Barbara said, azure eyes sparkling with interest; Walter began cursing the book instead. "I've always thought archaeologists must have the coolest jobs ever. Any chance we'll get to see him around?"

"Oh, he's frightfully busy, I expect," Walter laughed nervously, kicking one of the questing pigeons aside. "Our paths haven't intersected much, even with him at my apartment." He busied himself with collecting bits of foil from the ground, painfully aware that Barbara was scrutinizing him.

"If I didn't know better," she remarked, "I'd think you were jealous."

 _If you knew Otto as I did, you wouldn't think that_ , he thought wearily. "Preposterous. No green-eyed monster, Walter Strickler." Also untrue, but for different reasons. "In any case, I'm afraid the stage is calling. It's been lovely to see you, as always . . ."

Barbara proffered her hand for a kiss, then leaned in and deposited one on the tip of his nose. "Missed you, Walt." She withdrew with obvious reluctance, which he couldn't help but feel himself. "Have a good rehearsal." She smiled, perhaps with just a hint of mischief. "Of course, if you _do_ break a leg, at least I'll get to see you at work."

"Barbara, my dear, it's been ages since anyone made the prospect of grievous bodily harm sound so appealing." His forearm twinged, ever so slightly. "Ta-ta."

 

_served the lust of my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her_

 

As stated, the first great love of Stricklander's life had been Rome. Later loves would include Ravenna, Byzantium, Alexandria, and Damascus. Cities were impossible not to love, even if they changed and broke his heart again and again.

Other trolls were largely _impossible_ to love, by contrast. Intimate fraternization in the ranks of Changelings was technically prohibited, but this rule was only enforced when high-ups wanted to make an example of someone, as the tragedy of the Impure was that their precarious social standing meant romantic liasons rarely survived the promotion or demotion of one of the parties involved. Stricklander had climbed his way up the ranks with sufficient skill and finesse to know that a well-placed blade in someone's back -- be it metaphorical or literal -- was a better thing to rely on than a lover's promise. 

(Not that it was entirely his fault. Changelings couldn't even trust other Changelings; how could any of them hope for true communion within the bonds of affection? It was an argument for Stricklander's end goal of securing them their own fiefdom after Gunmar's victory, with himself as its undisputed viceroy). 

In spite of this unhappy state of affairs, Stricklander's paramours had all been other Changelings, with one notable exception: Irishksial the Dust-Maiden, a troll commander in Gunmar's army. Still limber as he was in those days before the Sundering, considered homely (except for his horns, those were unusually good by anyone's standards and always won him attention), eager to impress, and smitten with her sharp demeanor and terrifying height, he had responded to her interest with demure submission. It was astonishing. He was an Impure; she was a ranking warrior and Gumm-Gumm elite.

Being singled out for the physical attentions of Irishksial was not unlike one's city winning a bid to host the Olympics: a hard-won honor involving much initial strutting and high expectations that quickly degenerated into frenzied confusion, panic, intermittent amazement at feats of extreme physical prowess, and a sinking feeling of devastation after the noisy conclusion. It had been the defining erotic experience of his life, and also the reason why his arms tended to pop out of their sockets under strain.

After that, he hadn't bothered with anyone else. Fidelity had nothing to do with it; she'd ignored him after the tryst. Rather, it was reaching the realization that life assigns high watermarks for all the various categories of experience, and desire could not surpass the dizzying heights of whatever she had done to him, assuming that pleasure had been involved, which didn't seem entirely unlikely. Irishksial would later be slain by Deya the Deliverer at the Battle of Killahead Bridge, a fact that left Stricklander intermittently wistful and relieved. He still thought of her every time he viewed the aftermath of a tornado.

It was an odd thing to be sparing a thought for a lover long dead, but the alternative was listening to Otto enthusing about the quality of the air ducts in the Arcadia Natural History Museum and how they would be perfect for goblins to nest in. "No sensors -- at least, none that we could not find ways of dealing with," his compatriot held forth, tapping on the blueprint. "And -- just think! -- Gunmar emerging from the Great Hall, _ach_ , how the marble would echo with his roars -- "

"I think there are rather more practical issues concerning the Return than mere theatricality, Otto," Walter retorted. "As for goblins, frankly, it's harder to find a place where they _can't_ nest, and besides, the current Trollhunter is an old hand at rooting out their enclaves." He poured himself another glass of Riesling and cursed the universe at large that he'd let Otto pick the night's wine selection. "Reconstructing the Bridge in plain sight has always had a certain appeal -- hence why I championed this plan to begin with -- but it's got as many strategic drawbacks as it does advantages -- "

"Like what?"

Walter resisted the urge to snarl at him for his insolence, instead answering, "For starters, it's above ground. Giovanni's existing foundation is sufficiently large that we could expand on it without Trollmarket noticing our activities. The travel agency has a deep basement, I grant you, but nowhere near the size we require." He took a swig of his drink before continuing. " _Bleh_. If we tried to expand that basement to the depths we needed, it would only be a matter of time before someone reported to Kanjigar, and -- much as it pains me to say so -- without Bular to lock horns with him, we'd be massacred. In any case, it runs the risk of discovery."

"Where _is_ Bular?" Otto interjected. "Turkey?"

"I expect so by now, although I instructed the Ankara division to delay his arrival for a few weeks. Exposing him to the endless monotony of the modern world tends to drive him back into the wilds of his own accord." They exchanged a smirk. "Which is another point in favor of the restaurant -- it's closer to the Trollmarket entrance. We wouldn't need to assemble Killahead in the museum and then traipse through town in full view of the humans, we could simply activate it, then locate a nearby Gyre tunnel and rupture their defenses without all that tedious mulling about under a bridge, trying to crack Vendal's wards."

"I doubt the humans could do much to stop Gunmar even if we were massing in the open," scoffed Otto. 

Walter narrowed his eyes. "Best not to find out. Cleaner, this way."

"Again, such sentimental feelings for these creatures -- "

"Far from sentiment," Walter said bitterly. "There's too many bloody-minded simpletons with standing armies, Otto. The world's changed five times over since Killahead; it won't be as easy as having Gunmar waltz back through --"

"It has not changed underground," Otto responded. "That's all that concerns our Lord; the humans will -- "

Walter slammed the glass down on the table. "That attitude is exactly the problem," he snapped. "Trolls change at geologic speed, but humans -- you were _awake_ for the past century, weren't you? They split the atom. They've gone to space. They've triggered an extinction event, for pity's sake, and if Gunmar thinks they'll just flee and roll over like the old days --"

Otto folded his arms. "I was merely stating an opinion. There are those who share your belief in what the Return requires, but the others?" He shook his head. "They still require convincing. Too many have grown discontent with hiding in the shadows, pretending to be meat. It wears, does it not?"

Walter fixed him with a pointed look. "I've never had that difficulty. But then, that's why _I_ run the Order, don't I?"

A certain silence prevailed. Otto avoided his gaze, instead moving from the table to glance at the icon still holding court over the living room. "I've never much cared for this one," he remarked of it, at length. "Where is the other Rublev?"

"Still in the box." Walter gestured to the side of the credenza. "I find it to be somewhat poor company."

Otto removed it, peered at it, then giggled. " _Unheimlich_." He placed the Icon of the Sacrifice of Issac next to the Hospitality of Abraham, gesturing towards the ram caught in the thicket. " _He_ looks familiar, doesn't he?"

Walter was beginning to drift back into memories of being sensually hurled into the side of a cliff; so onerous was this conversation. "I'm still finding a buyer for them," he responded, wondering why the wine in his glass was so much lower all of a sudden. "Andrei was convinced they're authentic, but he's been wrong about this sort of thing before."

"What of the unicorn necklace?" 

He paused in the act of raising the glass to his mouth. "What of it?"

"Someone removed it from the Moscow warehouse -- "

"I wanted to prevent Nomura from getting any ideas about how to find the missing stones," he replied. "When her blood's up, she's barely any more subtle than Bular." Walter took another drink of uninspired vino, adding, "Some days, I feel as though I'm the only member of the Janus Order that values the concept of secrecy, or even understands what the word means."

"As I said, _mein Freund_ , it's been too long." Otto stepped backwards from the icons, having arranged them to his satisfaction. "We've endured so much . . ."

Walter tipped back his glass. "'The oldest hath borne most: we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long.'"

The other Changeling blinked in confusion. "What?"

 

_'Tis time to look about; the powers of the kingdom approach apace_

 

"Are you sure it's okay?" Drew asked for the fifteenth time. "I mean, I don't wanna throw your back out -- "

Walter sighed. "Mr. Calvillo, I hardly intend to carry you the entire length of the stage. Six strides and you're safely on the ground." Privately, he had been less concerned with the mechanics of hoisting his Cordelia than he was of walking into the blinding and as-of-yet undimmed floods that Connor was still vainly endeavoring to adjust. "If you have any reservations in regard to student-teacher interpersonal proprieties, you may take it up with Ms. Janeth."

Drew wrinkled his nose in disgust. "No, I don't mean _that_. Anyway, she's -- I mean, I don't want to be dragged onto the stage; that would just look wrong." He adjusted the hem of his dress -- worn reasonably well -- then glanced nervously up at his teacher. "It's not -- weird?"

Walter glanced to his immediate left, where Cornwall and Edgar were throwing balloons filled with red dye at Kent, imprisoned in the stocks. "'Weird' is a relative term. Shall we move downstage?"

On the less spattered side was Marcus, dressed in motley, squinting at the book of advanced juggling techniques he'd purchased. "Man. Whoever thinks you can do five of these at a time must've been hit on the head by one too many chainsaws."

"I think it's, like, a sequence?" Drew offered.

"Great. I can send messages to the back of the auditorium in code. 'Act Three almost done; get ready to run to the restrooms . . .'"

Drew grinned; a rare enough sight for Walter to take notice. "And then you get to spend the rest of the play doing nothing."

"Yeah, about that -- " Marcus, three balls in the air, turned in Walter's direction. "Nuncle, how come the Fool just disappears all of a sudden? They don't even say what happens -- "

His associate interjected, "Uh, he gets hung, remember -- "

Marcus shook his head, nearly fumbling. "No, he means you. Cordelia, I mean, 'poor fool' or whatever." His expression abruptly froze. "Oh, great. Here comes the Boss Lady . . ."

The woman in question, clad in yet another black turtleneck, stalked onto stage. "Mr. Calvillo, if you're not learning your lines, Props need you. Jason's lost the cockscomb again; I don't know who keeps running off with it . . ." She sighed theatrically as Drew shuffled off behind the curtain. "And on this, of all nights!"

That sounded sufficiently ominous that Walter stood up. "It's only a dress run-through, Ms. Janeth; I can't think it would be a disaster to be missing one prop. Considering that we still have several weeks before -- "

She threw back her head in overwrought despondency. "Three members of the School Board are stopping in to watch! This -- this can't go wrong. It can't!"

"Uh, it's just another rehearsal?" Marcus dropped a ball, but managed to cunningly kick it back into the air. "Isn't this the right time for it to be the wrong time?"

"Deft wordplay, Mr. Robinson," Walter applauded. "You _are_ getting into character."

"Thanks, nuncle -- "

Their director broke into a wail. "No, you don't understand! This -- I need to make a good impression! This is my first time in charge of a production, and if they're not impressed, I'm the laughingstock of the Arcadian theatrical community!" A hand fell across her brow.

Walter exchanged a look with Marcus, who offered, "Uh, I think we're okay? Not like we're doing something like _Macbeth_ \-- "

Ms. Janeth shrieked as though pinched. "Don't say that name!"

"What? Macbeth?"

"The Scottish Play! It's terrible to say the play's name on stage -- "

"I believe, Ms. Janeth, that only counts when one's production is actually _Macbeth_ \--" 

"Not you too! How can my vision ever be fulfilled when the ranks of my play are full of saboteurs -- " She lapsed into monologuing, which thankfully involved her moving to the center of the stage and ignoring everyone else.

Marcus, still juggling, shook his head. "Does anyone actually go into teaching because they actually, like, _want_ to teach, or is it all coaches and washed-up actors?"

Walter -- educator and infiltrator -- debated curbing this bout of adolescent cynicism and settled instead for swiping one of the balls out of midair. "The instruction of youth is one of the highest callings there is," he remarked, testing the weight of the sphere by tossing it between his hands. "On that note, in answer to your earlier question, Cordelia and the Fool were usually portrayed by the same actor, so they were never onstage at the same time. Or, if you like, always onstage at the same time." He plucked another of Marcus's globes from its fall. "Possibly as symbolism, but more likely than not a cost-saving measure." The third ball joined its fellows in Walter's dance. "Throw me that last one, if you please."

"No way," Marcus muttered in disbelief, scrabbling for the aforementioned object, tossing it his way; he just managed to add it into the cycle. "How -- how do you know -- how are you doing that, Strickler?"

Walter -- who had done more than his share of light entertaining before achieving status, especially when free drinks could be wrangled -- managed a devious grin. "My dear Fool, you'd never guess how many things I have in the air."

 

_The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to plague us_

 

"Wow," Barbara remarked. "No pressure."

Walter snorted. "Please. I've faced down more than my share of administrators in my time. Charge them and they scatter." He nearly flicked a sandwich crumb off his trouser, then thought better of it. "These are quite good, incidentally."

She took a bite of her own, leaning back against the bench. "I told you. Jim's got a pretty solid grasp of flavor profiles for someone who'd eat marshmallow cereal for every meal if I let him." He observed her tongue darting to the corner of her mouth, lapping at a glob of marmalade. "Mmm. Nice to know he inherited something useful from his dad."

Walter licked the crumb off his finger, attempting not to notice Barbara noticing him. "He's holding up all right?"

Her shoulders tightened. "Yes," she finally said, in a tone heavy with unspoken developments. "Probably. Anyway, he's really looking forward to seeing the play, tonight."

He stretched, diverting his attention to the valley beneath them, sunlight glinting on leaves and the occasional chrome carapace of a vehicle. "And I'm looking forward to having you both there. Though, I must caution you that it's just a run-through; not quite the finished product." 

"Hey, I don't know what to expect in the first place," she responded with a laugh. "I promise to be really impressed, whatever happens." 

"My character slowly loses his mind. Then he quickly loses his mind. Then he briefly regains it, just long enough to die." Walter took another bite of the surprisingly good roast beef and swiss on rye sandwich (garnished with mustard and marmalade). "Rain and recriminations and screaming, as befits a play set in Britain."

Barbara chuckled. "Is Earl going to come, too?"

Walter made a show of stretching again to conceal the scowl on his face. "The only Earls due tonight are Kent and Gloucester, I'm afraid. Honestly, I haven't been able to keep track of him much since he appeared." This, to some extent, was true: in the weeks since Otto's arrival, their respective orbits had been carefully circumscribed so as not to attract any unwanted attention from the community, and as it meant keeping his theatrical and personal interests out of view, Walter hardly objected to this arrangement. Luckily -- as a polymorph -- Otto could take on numerous forms and easily infiltrate Arcadia's streets without eliciting comment. Less luckily, these unlinked morphic shifts always took a heavy toll on his metabolism and after a few hours of posing as a security guard or elderly woman or museum intern, Otto would usually devour two to three pizzas before passing out on Walter's couch for half-day stretches at a time, snoring. 

The apartment reeked of carbonized anchovies. Even if Walter's proposal for the headquarters fell through, the destruction of Giovanni's was fast becoming a necessity.

"Huh," was all Barbara said in response, though her appraising glance in his direction said volumes. After a moment, she laid a hand on his wrist; he placed his own hand over hers. She said in an undertone, "I was hoping we'd get a chance to spend some more time together."

It didn't take much imagination to parse what she was really saying. "Things will fall into place, soon enough." He couldn't quite meet her eyes. "Once this is all over." In spite of its excellent lunch, his stomach turned. 

"I hope so," she sighed. "Thanks to the day shifts, I'm starting to feel human again for the first time in months. Maybe years."

"Enviable," Walter murmured, his hand squeezing hers. "I assume, anyway."

 

_Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit_

 

Gumm-Gumms were a fractious and highly individualistic race (or amalgamation of races) prior to Gunmar the Black assuming control over their ranks, at which point he reforged them in his own image. Occasionally, that was more than just a figure of speech, which did make a strong argument for being allowed to serve him of one's own free will. There were slaves, and then there were _slaves_.

Still, they had possessed something closer to an actual culture once, but Stricklander suspected that was being slowly whittled away as the Underlord chafed and stewed on his infernal throne. If true, that meant the Changelings were likely becoming the only repository of the old customs who were still alive and (mostly) mentally-inviolate. Frankly, he wasn't about to insist that Gumm-Gumm tradition be nominated for UNESCO conservation status.

Possibly the Gumm-Gumm disdain for Changelings lay in their slaves' willingness to adapt to other cultural mores and observances -- but it was required, wasn't it? They had been acquired in this way, after all. The Janissaries of the Janus Order. How droll. 

Raids and wars against the rest of trollkind had allowed Stricklander access to the histories and lore of numerous other races that had either been destroyed or assimilated into Gunmar's ranks, and these texts had slowly imparted a deeper understanding to him: Gumm-Gumm conventions were genuinely atypical of other troll beliefs and habit. The more he read -- sifting through annals and law books and diaries and gazetteers -- the more inescapable the realization was that he had been shanghaied by a sub-literate pack of maniacs infused with infinite ambition yet almost no capacity for higher thought. 

In the writings of the conquered were poetry, and pageantry, and loss, and love. The younger Stricklander had scoffed at these weak and idle fancies, but the seed of doubt slowly blossomed over the long years. The Gumm-Gumm way was not the only mode of existence, and certainly not the most satisfying. Ironically, these revelations did not endow him with an affinity for the rest of trollkind, but drove him deeper into humanity's orbit, with the intention of anchoring the Changelings in their sphere. 

Let the Pure break each other to pieces under the earth. Neither side would ever really accept his brethren; safer to live in the light, undetected and unregarded by these quaint, malleable fleshbags that could be capable of so much more under the right guidance. He had extracted a promise from Gunmar; he would see it fulfilled.

It had nearly cost Stricklander everything to secure his patronage. Even now, whenever there was a stir of whispers, he wondered if he'd made the right choice.

 

_Sound, trumpet!_

 

"It sounds like there's a bunch of people out there," reported Marcus, who was helping Drew zip up the back of his gown. "Who's brought the audience? I thought it was just those guys that Ms. Janeth's all worked up about -- "

Walter -- bracing for the glare of the lights, calibration still being fine-tuned -- ducked his head through the curtain. After the initial blindness, he could clearly make out a few nondescript personages projecting airs of unwarranted self-importance, one or two bored friends of cast members, the janitor, and -- 

Jim waved at him from the third row. "Hey!" 

He waved back, then quickly returned to the other side of the stage. "I only count ten or so people. More than past rehearsals, but hardly a full house."

"Who were you waving to?" asked Marcus.

"A . . . friend." His Fool made an overly-dramatic sigh; Drew nudged him in disapproval. "Were you expecting anyone tonight?"

"Phht. My mom's schedule changed. Anyway, she wouldn't care unless it was a football game." Marcus fell to tying the laces on his pointy shoes, face obscured. "Drew?"

"No." Drew coughed. "You're still okay with the lifting, Mr. Strickler?"

Walter struck a pose, affecting their director's overwrought cadences. "I'm already carrying this production, aren't I?" Both students guffawed explosively, only to be shushed by the appearance of the woman herself, frantically drawing cast and crew in and going over last-minute details, as well as trying to emphasize (while de-emphasizing) that they had Very Special Guests looking in tonight and could everyone just do their best? not that they hadn't been, please don't think she meant that, but --

\-- but the curtain rose, and after a short interval with the hapless Connor trying to remember which switches did what, the play had begun. 

Other than Albany forgetting a line and a servant accidentally dropping a bowl, things progressed well. Bastard sons were introduced, legitimate daughters were disinherited, and Marcus's juggling didn't miss a beat. Whenever Walter could spare a glance into the audience, he could just make out Barbara gazing up at him, Jim perched on her lap. The play began to hit its stride with Kent cursing out Oswald -- Walter wanted the role for that speech alone -- and quickly heated up from there, the young actors throwing themselves into the moment, feeding off the slowly-building doom. 

So rapt was he in watching the play unfold, in remembering lines and stage directions while avoiding retinal damage, Walter didn't pay any further attention to the audience until the moment in Act 3, Scene 2 when, after roaring Lear's curses like a wounded bull, his eyes fell on an empty space. 

They were not there.

For a long, inexplicable moment he faltered, seeing the vacant seats, the staring faces all around those two conspicuous absences, the spotlight searing his eyes. Panicked, abandoned with humans, utterly alone, only the howl of wind and the rumbling of thunder --

\-- he recovered, as he always recovered, folding the emotion into Lear's wail of confusion, immersing himself in just another layer of fiction.

" _I am a man more sinn'd against than sinning_ ," he moaned, hunching, retracting into himself as though a mortally-wounded snail, and for a brief moment Marcus's look of concern was genuine. But he too abandoned Walter as the play progressed, slipping into the roles of various men-at-arms and servants, as his king went to ruin and staggered up and down the stage, casting feverish stares at the blanching administrators, the now-rapt students and janitor, the lack of Barbara or Jim, and the unwelcome glint of light on a very distinctive pair of round spectacles.

 

_How long have you been a sectary astronomical?_

 

"I always knew you were _talented_ , my dear friend," Otto murmured in sadistic delight. "But, such a performance! I never would have suspected you to possess these hidden depths." He broke into giggling. 

Walter -- divested of kingly garb and beard -- refused to take the bait. "It's good to have an excuse to be here after-hours. People begin asking questions once the school year's over." He peeked out the door of his office one last time to confirm that the hall was vacant before crossing to the shelves behind his desk and opening the inner sanctum. "In any case, it helps to have an escape valve for one's pent-up frustrations." He ushered Otto in, letting the shelves reseal. Privacy was essential.

" _Ach_ , certainly frustration must be dealt with," affirmed Otto. "Was that your young lady doctor in the audience?"

"I wouldn't know, given how the floods were angled. For future reference, Otto? The term is just 'doctor'; it doesn't require modifiers." Walter sat down, back aching slightly from the strain of carrying Drew without slipping on vile jelly. "Well? I trust your survey is nearly complete?"

" _Ja, ja_." His companion languidly opened a file on his laptop, pulling up a series of of spreadsheets detailing entry points, confirmed Gyre intersections, fault lines. "You were right. Trollmarket is still too well-protected." He scowled. "The worst of it was how _lazy_ they are about it all! They don't believe there's anything to fear, yet every one I saw on the trash raids had a gaggletack. I could have easily disposed of the fools three times over, but that wouldn't get me underground -- "

"Well, we'll cross that Bridge once it's built," Walter replied. "It's an argument for the stratagem involving the Gyre tunnels, at least. If Killahead is activated below the earth, the magical feedback could very well disable any barrier magic they've strung up down there."

Otto shifted from foot to foot. "The Bridge would have to be aligned with a ley line to do this," he said, slowly. "Giovanni's is not situated this way. The travel agency, however -- "

"I've made up my mind," Walter interrupted. "The restaurant will be the site of the headquarters. Ade will free up some funds to purchase the space, just as soon as it goes on the market -- " He noted the other Changeling's sudden trepidation, barking, "You have an objection?"

" _Nein, aber_ \-- " Otto fidgeted with the brim of his ridiculous hat. "The -- the Pale Lady has -- She has told you to build there?"

Walter closed his eyes. "You know very well that She only speaks when She feels a detail is being overlooked. As such, I assume that Her approval is implicit." Of course, being on situated on a ley line would substantially amplify Argante's voice, but Walter had not missed hearing it. "More critically, Lord Gunmar trusts my judgement in this." He tapped his keypen on the surface of his desk, still splintered. "I want you to infiltrate Giovanni's. Figure out the best method of razing the structure without making it look like arson -- my bet's on that wretched oven of theirs -- and make sure the adjoining building gets its share; we don't want neighbors overhearing any of our work."

Otto looked as though he were about to protest, but instead he bowed his round head with a sigh. " _Jawohl_." The video feed linked to the hidden camera in Walter's office displayed Drew bursting in with an anguished expression. Though the operational room was soundproofed, both Changelings were silent as they observed him looking around in confusion, only resuming conversation after the door was once again closed. "I shall begin preliminary work on the destruction process. Clearly, you have much that concerns you here," Otto concluded, a trace of snideness in his tone. 

Walter was abstractly impressed with himself that his temper could be held in check; maybe playing Lear did act as sufficient catharsis. "Indeed. You can see yourself out, I trust?"

 

_No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I'll not love_

 

That had been an hour ago. He'd been holed up in the operational room since then, staring at schematics of sewer systems, blueprints of future headquarters, field reports, expense analyses, the world map, skeletal components of hapless gnomes, and -- every few seconds -- his phone.

In spite of his professional and conversational objections to the practice of texting, he had grudgingly made a point of occasionally sending or responding to Barbara's equally-infrequent missives. Fear of being compromised (ha) meant that he kept things ambiguous to the point of seeming terse, but it had been surprisingly difficult to type _Is everything all right?_ without overflowing with worry and/or pique.

There had been no response. The school was quiet, now, the janitor making the last rounds and the cast of _King Lear_ having dispersed. Remaining in the office seemed inadvisable and dull, but the prospect of returning to the apartment with its cardboard boxes and sugary wines and waiting for Otto to slink back in was equally unsavory.

The phone remained inert, his last question unanswered. In the absence of her response, a conversation with himself that he'd been putting off for some time was finally taking place. The subject had been exacerbated by the presence of another Changeling, but it was a conclusion that was inescapable. 

You don't fraternize outside of the parameters of the mission, he told himself severely for the nine-hundreth time since the inception of this particular misguided enterprise. Yes, of course one felt an affinity for the poor creatures, but even though he'd stopped regarding them as enemies long ago, they were still the opposition, even if they didn't know it, and doomed. When Gunmar was freed -- an outcome he deemed likely within the space of the coming century, give or take a few decades -- humanity would suffer the same fate that its callousness had unthinkingly inflicted on every other species on the planet's surface. In the long run, inevitable, and perhaps not entirely undeserved; on a personal level, upsetting, but one didn't fight the tide. King Canute was far wiser than Lear. 

(There could be no tea, no offhand banter, no constant reassurances, no lacing of hands, no warmth beside his arm, no lapis mirrors.)

The only thing for it was to make a good, clean break, and the time for that was now, before anything became more complicated. In any case, there was the work, the Initiative; sooner or later that would eat up his time. He could throw all his energy into that, into realizing the plans he'd revised a thousand times in the back of his head over countless lifetimes and endless reflection; slowly cloaking that framework with intent. Stricklander's glory, his legacy, his empire-within-an-empire, the justification and reward for a host of sacrifices and dark, dark hours.

(That _smile_ : half shy child, half cunning old woman. Best of both worlds.)

It was a mistake. It had always been a mistake. Some old instinct triggered by accident, allowed to go on far too long. No xenophile, Stricklander: merely sentimental. Otto was occasionally right, or at least, not completely wrong. 

"Well," he said aloud, startling himself. "Nothing for it." He rose abruptly, lest his nerve fail him, and made for the exit. "Now, gods, stand up for utter bastards."

 

_Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect / My love should kindle to inflamed respect_

 

The first indication that something was amiss was that Barbara wasn't surprised to see him. "Walt, hey. Thanks for coming." She'd changed from the summer dress she'd worn to the rehearsal, now clad in a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. The porchlight glistened on her skin; she was sweating. "Come in . . . "

"I really can't stay long," he began, feeling like the worst ghoul a maiden ever invited across her threshold. "Barbara, there's something I --" He glanced around, momentarily confused as to where she had gone; peering over the counter that divided the dining room from the kitchen afforded him a view of her lower torso as she rummaged beneath the sink. His line of thought evaporated.

Barbara reemerged with a huge, battered toolbox that she barely managed to hoist onto the countertop. "By the way, I'm really sorry we had to leave so suddenly," she said, pushing her hair away from her face. "We had a . . . well, a little meltdown." It seemed as though there was more she wanted to say on the matter, but instead she turned to rummage through the toolbox. "I promise I'll make one of your official performances, honest."

"About that . . ." It was an odd revelation that he'd been biting the inside of his lip for the entire duration of this visit. "Barbara, I need to speak to you about something, and I'm sorry that -- "

She glanced up, expression distracted. "Did you bring the pliers?"

"What?"

"The pliers?" She gave him a questioning look. "The ones I texted you about?"

"Just now?"

"I mean, twenty minutes ago, yeah." She pulled out a socket wrench, muttering to herself, "How many sets of these did he own?"

Walter cursed himself as the sudden revelation dawned that he'd left his phone back in the sanctum. "Er. Sorry, I don't -- "

Conversation was abruptly shattered by a sudden horrific thumping noise from somewhere below them, causing Barbara to curse and bolt down into the basement. " _Fudge it!_ " Further sounds of scraping and rattling ensued before stopping altogether, with only her annoyance still audible. 

Walter, now more than slightly curious, peered downstairs and around the complicated growth of the furnace. Barbara had wrenched the washing machine loose from the wall and was glowering at a piece of crumpled computer paper printed with some kind of schematics. "It's the drive belt. Swear to god, this thing is going to kill me." She lifted the lid and began to throw damp towels into the basement sink. "It worked fine, when I ran it empty earlier."

In spite of himself, Walter found he had joined her and was inspecting the machine as though he knew anything about such devices. "The same issue as last time?"

"No," she replied, half-disappearing into the tub to fish a Gun Robot-branded washcloth from its depths. "That was the agitator; this is definitely the drive belt. Maybe I just don't have it on right?" She righted herself, shooting him a weary glance. "I used to work in a hardware store, but that's where my expertise with this stuff begins and ends."

Walter removed his jacket (technically unnecessary) and cast it atop the dryer. "I'm afraid I can't be of much use, but perhaps we can put our heads together and determine the nature of the problem?" At the very least, it would serve as a kind of penance for what he was going to have to do by the end of the night. 

The next two hours were . . .

. . . intensely frustrating, yet bizarrely enjoyable. They involved cursing, terse language, apologies for terse language, mutual despair, confusion, elation, bitter disillusionment, and finally, a sad realization: they were out of their depths. It was amusing to Walter that, in spite being able to decode Enigma machines, he was completely incapable of determining the mechanics of something meant to launder underwear.

"Giving up," Barbara declared, falling backwards onto a pile of laundry on the floor (there were several, he noticed). "I just can't deal with this right now. Beer?"

"You have beer?" Walter wiped sweat from his brow . "Please."

"It's cold," she apologized on her return. "Is that okay? I know it's probably not how you drink it -- "

"I'm prepared to suffer further," he responded, clinking his bottle with hers. "Mmm. Contemptible in the extreme." The label said something about life, liberty and the pursuit of hoppiness; he supposed he could enjoy the pun if nothing else. "I didn't take you for a beer drinker, Ms. Lake."

"I'm not. Jim wanted to try out this bread recipe, but, uh . . . " Barbara slid down the side of the washer, gesticulating vaguely. "We might need to figure out how yeast is supposed to work, first."

"I'm sure he can rise to the occasion," Walter responded, and narrowly avoided being kicked. He sat down across from her, leaning against the dryer. "Did Jim not enjoy the performance?"

Barbara merely took a very long pull from her bottle before answering with a sigh, "I'm sorry, Walter. Like I said, he's been . . . he's been dealing with some rough stuff, and . . . " She flung the printout of washer schematics to the ground. "It's my fault. I was printing out instructions for this stupid thing, but FriendFace was up on another window, because I have to stalk the Loser's profile through some of his idiot buddies who still have me friended." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Trying to figure out where the heck he is so I can drag him into court."

"Ah." Walter, normally an early adopter, had recognized the danger of FriendFace long before the rest of the world and had explicitly forbade its use by any Janus operatives for reasons of security and good taste. "Thankless."

"Jim . . ." Barbara took off her glasses, rubbing her eyes. "Jim noticed his dad's page. The latest floozy's posted a bunch of pictures of him and her kids out snowboarding and just having a great old time." Her free hand made a fist. "He hasn't seen his own son since his fifth birthday, and here he is making posts about how special people he didn't even know existed two months ago are and how he's going to take them to Mammoth Mountain."

"And Jim saw all this?"

"I'd gone to print the instructions out and then I got a phone call, and when I came back . . ." Barbara set her glasses back onto her face with decided precision. "Good work, Barb; A-plus parenting." She unclenched her fist. "I think . . . I think all that stuff with Edmund, or Edgar? In the play? The brother turning his dad against the other brother, and the king throwing out the only daughter who really loved him . . ." 

"It touched a nerve," concluded Walter, an old melancholy dissipating through his inner ores. "The poor child."

"I just don't know what to tell him, anymore," she murmured. "You weren't wrong, Walt, but _god_ , I just want to wrap him up and never let anything hurt him ever again."

"No," he agreed, quietly. "No." He studied the bottle in his hands with disproportionate care, remembering those huge blue eyes in that small, drawn face looking up at him, marmalade on the ground -- 

"Did you thank him for my sandwich?" Walter asked, resolving not to grow any more maudlin; it made him feel older than he liked. "It was a kind gesture."

"No, sorry." Barb glanced away, sighing. "Geez. All we do is talk about my ex or my kid." She took a long pull off her bottle. "Or both. Or stuff I found in peoples' rectums. We don't ever talk about you."

"I've never felt particularly slighted in that regard. There's not that much to say of me, really."

"No?" She flicked foam from her upper lip. "Why did you come to the States? I never really asked." She tilted her head to one side. "You never talk about your life before coming here . . ."

Stricklander exhaled, slowly, and began unspooling the deeper threads of Walter Strickler's carefully-prepared history, plucked from his earlier years and rewoven into new cloth. "Well. My parents should never have married each other, but they were of an age and generation that put stock in appearances. Mother was a homemaker, at least in theory; Father was in . . . acquisitions. I was the third of four children: two older brothers with no capacity for fraternal affection, and a younger sister who I suspect would have been good company if she'd not died in infancy." He swirled the remnants of his beer, sighing, "My own sickliness did little to endear me to Mother, and as Father suspected her, not without reason, of having several affairs with -- "

Barbara held up her hands. "Wow. Uh. You don't have to go on if it's -- "

"It's embarrassing, to be sure." Or it might well have been, if he'd cared for human relationships at that point in his life; it was odd to be recounting these long-dead dynamics for the sake of this creature not three decades old and so desperate to see if he cast a shadow. Again, he felt old. "But, as you know, there was my Aunt Tillie four doors down, and if I can boast of any social graces at all, you've her to thank."

"Hmm." Barbara's smile was a small dawn. "She did a great job."

He took another sip of his beer, noting with surprise that most of it was gone; obviously appliance repair was thirstier work than he'd expected. "She was the only member of that clan worth claiming as kin," he added, steeling himself against any fits of lachrymosity. "All things considered, I find aunts to be far superior creatures to mothers."

His companion arched an eyebrow. "Thanks."

"Obviously I don't mean-- "

"No. I get you." She sighed, leaning back against the mustard-yellow expanse of the washer. "For me, it's grandparents. Gramps and Gran-Gran . . . if it wasn't for them . . ." Her gaze grew cloudy in remembrance, and for a strange few moments Walter was annoyed to realize how their positions had reversed themselves. But instead of offering any insights into her own family, she merely shook her head. "Anyway. You came to the U.S. to get away from all that?"

"Oh, not exactly; that was just a bonus," he chuckled. "As I said, I had aspirations in regard to archaeology, but they never quite panned out. I had the grades, the money, and the opportunities -- but never at the same time." It was starting to disturb him how he could look Barbara straight in her eyes and lie so easily; effortlessly pouring rank deceit into those unpolluted blue pools. "Cue a mental breakdown, a premature mid-life crisis, and the stunning realization that I enjoyed explaining things to young people more than I enjoyed trying to publish, and I took up teaching and never looked back."

"In California, though? Kind of a radical change from England."

He snorted. "Barbara, you're from Seattle; you of all people should know what it's like to be continually rained-upon. Once you see five continuous minutes of sunlight, how can you ever go back?"

"Hey, now." Her expression grew playful. "Don't knock the damp. Pointless suffering builds character."

Walter barked with laughter. "Then we've built excellent amounts of character tonight, haven't we?" He gestured to the washer. "I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this, but . . . Barbara, my dear, you should really just -- "

She covered her ears, one hand still clutching her bottle. "No! Nonono. Nope."

"-- buy a new washer." 

Barbara pointed a finger in his face. "I'll admit defeat when I'm dead, Walt." She took an exaggeratedly large hit off her beer. "It's _personal_ , now."

"Oh, now _here's_ Shakespeare. O'erweening pride, a refusal to yield to the forces of fate -- "

She blew a raspberry at him. "Tragedy or comedy?"

"Is there really a difference?" 

"Uh, yeah, Walt. By definition." She gave him an impish smile. "Or are you being actor-y right now?"

"Earnest as the day as long, dear lady."

"It's night." Barbara's voice had dropped, its tone markedly less domesticated. "C'mon. Give me a line. Make me believe it."

"Oh, he's a bellower, Lear," he replied, leaning fractionally forward. "I'd wake the house."

She cocked her head. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were getting back at me for bowing out so early." The dim light of the overhead bulb set a glint in her eye. 

"I'm hardly that vindictive, surely?" He narrowed his eyes at her as though affronted. "The Prince of Darkness, I assure you, is a gentleman."

"And so modest," she purred, running a hand through her hair. "Although -- would a real gentleman be over so late on a weeknight?"

"I did have an ulterior motive," Walter conceded reluctantly, the unpleasant realization dawning that here, working with her in the basement, talking, drinking, he had somehow managed to forget the onerous reason that had brought him to her door, becoming lost yet again in the easy comfort of her presence. 

"Really?" Her upturned face was inordinately beautiful in spite of the sweat and grime beading on its surface. "Did you need help practicing for a play?"

 

_Let copulation thrive_

 

 _This is no future_ , snarled the frantic voice from his innermost abyss, _this is not you_ \-- and no, this was not the old schemer, the plotter, tallyer of grievances, servant of the ravening dark; this was rage and terror and hunger for a gasping, squirming (moaning) thing who wrapped her arms around his shoulders and whispered incoherent, meaningless adorations into his ear, and then bit his earlobe. He growled in ecstasy, sinking his teeth into that excellent neck -- 

"Ow!"

\-- human, too human, and deserving of tenderer salutations than his fangs. He touched his lips to her throat, nostrils flooding with the tang of pheromones and salt, running his tongue down its straining length. Her hips bucked underneath him, one leg kicking frantically until it hooked around his side for leverage --

For the second time in as many minutes, Walter saw stars, his head colliding with the floor as she flipped him, straddled him, ran her hands under his sweater and up the sides of his chest, pinning his body to the floor --

"NO!" 

Barbara froze instantly. "Wha -- what's wrong -- "

 _What is_ wrong, _wretched beautiful creature_ , he nearly howled, _is everything, everything nine times over, and if you continue to maul me as befits a troll, an amorous troll you shall have --_

Her expression was rent with concerned dismay, fragile and flushed. The sight of it rekindled that old warmth from deep within and his hand slipped of its own accord to cradle the side of her cheek. "Ticklish. You'll have me shrieking."

She pressed a kiss to the inside of his palm, causing electricity to pool at the base of his spine. Backlit by the lamp, her hair gleamed like cascading lava, trailing down the edges of her glorious neck to tease the edges of beautiful, fluted clavicles, trickling into the hollows they formed, and over the gentle slope of her shoulders. He wound a finger around a strand, half-expecting to be burnt; it yielded, silken.

Threading his fingers through her hair, he pulled her down to him, again tasting hops and spearmint on her tongue. Strange, still so strange not to touch his forehead to hers; strange how a cacophony of urges both learned and innate howled contradictions within him; strange how there was no strangeness in this thing that was all strangeness. The body melting into and against him was heavy, warm, bone and blood and -- 

"Ow!"

\-- elbows.

"Sorry," Barbara murmured, slightly breathless, glasses askew. She sat back up, weight redistributing onto his hips, and arched an eyebrow. "Hmm."

"Excuse me."

"You're -- " Barbara broke into badly-suppressed giggles. "You're not seriously apologizing for _this_ , are you?" The accompanying rocking motion was rather pointed, and indeed encouraged that state. The last vestiges of resistance screamed at him to make excuses, remark on the lateness of the hour, dust himself off, depart.

These vestiges began wailing in earnest as he dragged Barbara to the pile of dirty linens and added her clothes to it, tallying the excellent bones hidden under the dingy shirt, the secret architecture that held this proud tower upright, her innermost minerals buried under the alien but lovely expanse of skin and muscle.

\-- yes, the old schemer, the old plotter, source of his own starving darkness, he was all these things still, and there would be a moment where he must say _no more_ but rage and terror and hunger be dammed, he would have this. He dragged tongue and teeth across her contours, tracing fingers in the furrows of her ribs and the ridges of her vertebrae. Her own hands fumbled distractedly with the edges of his sweater, apparently trying to lift it without being parted from his attentions, back arching underneath him as she worked herself out of her pants. 

When he pulled away, her face was feverish, exposed body blossoming with the marks his mouth had left, and now, beneath and directly in front of him, as Lear might have said, _there's hell, there's darkness_. He faltered, unable to reconcile this aspect of her with the burgeoning hunger that her flesh had instilled in him.

"Walt?" Barbara's voice was slightly hoarse, low, sweet. "Hey -- "

But whatever else he could or could not do, he knew the merit of a pretty phrase, and he could put his silver tongue to new uses; thus, reverently, the horned beast laid his head in the maiden's lap.

 

_Yours in the ranks of death_

 

The Lady Pale had first spoken to him through the conch, but that had been destroyed in an appalling accident. Years later, Stricklander would hear Her again, whispering to him from behind the jadeite stare of an Aztec burial mask. That immobile mouth too fell silent, but in 1907 the voice resurfaced in the tinny susurrations of a Victrola liberated from the study of a diplomat who fell afoul of a certain W. Van Strick. 

Stricklander was -- as stated -- a seducer when advantageous to be so, and the attentions of Argante required a brazen coyness few others could have managed. He hailed Her as the mother of his (bastard, deformed) race, quailed in recalling Her mighty arts, bemoaned his inability to worship Her as she doubtless deserved, and took all that she provided him, fully aware how she was pursuing her own ends and that she would demand a price for it one day. Until then, he was happy to decipher the cryptic utterances that occasionally fell into his ears, which were always useful, if infrequent. 

From all these varied forms came Her secrets, carefully measured out through the long years. She spoke of where to find the entrance to troll caverns underneath Alexandria. She disclosed the name of an abandoned abbey whose crumbling walls contained stone from Gunmar's prison. She hinted at the locations of secret treasures, concealed passages, subtle weapons.

She gifted him a knife made of iron.

Finally -- centuries into this quaint arrangement -- she demanded his fealty. Her timing was well-calculated: Stricklander was ambitious, hungry, and had finally acquired direct control of the Janus Order after a lifetime of plotting. Recognizing those ambitions and holding onto his position would require a powerful patron. 

It was a commitment he was loath to make, however tempting it seemed on the surface. Argante had no power to directly harm him -- probably -- but to bear her standard was to lose himself, and to enter her service was never to leave it, not even in death. He was already a slave; he didn't need more shackles. 

Not, of course, that he said that out loud. Rather, he plied Her with declarations of his eternal gratitude and his great unworthiness, insisting that his loyalty to Gunmar could not be superseded by another master -- indeed, as a Changeling, great Mistress, what else could he do? that was his reason for being -- and thus, he would always serve Her in that capacity, insomuch as Her goals and the Skullcrusher's ran in tandem.

Her only reply to this had been silence. After a while, he stopped trying to coax a voice from the Victrola, eventually abandoning it altogether when the coup ousted him and he went into hiding. Then there was the war, and he made use of her knife, and he regained control of the staggering remnant of the Janus Order, exiling the silent speaker to the vaults of the Kunstkammer to moulder in perpetuity alongside Hapsburg bric-a-brac, as he should have done the first time the voices started all those years ago. 

One could always hope that she slept.

 

 _Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire_

 

Barbara was drooling on his shoulder. The washer had stopped its angry thrashing about they same time as they had, meaning that the only sound in the basement was her faint snoring: the perfect backdrop for Stricklander's internal screaming.

He'd mated with a human. 

He attempted to find a euphemistic alternative that allowed for a degree of distance from this new and baffling reality, but, not unlike a difficult translation of a certain passage of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the poetry was the bluntness.

They'd f-worded. They'd f-worded all over the f-wording floor. 

Thanks to previous missions where it was required to pitch woo at ladies of significance (and occasionally, men) who were susceptible to his charms, Stricklander had sunk some thought on how to proceed with a full seduction if absolutely necessary. The mechanics seemed graspable -- if dull and tepidly divergent from troll mating behavior -- sufficiently so that after two thousand years of seeing, overhearing, or reading enough about human sexual tendencies he'd assumed that he could convincingly fake it if absolutely required. Lie back and think of the Darklands, so to speak. 

As it stood, he'd never needed to test those conjectures, and could have happily maintained this body's quaint virginity for the rest of its natural existence. Then, Barbara. Whatever else could be said of this harrowing last hour, it had been undertaken with terrifying sincerity. Mad, stupid, terrified, confused, artless sincerity, so much so that he'd had to screw his eyes shut for fear that they were glowing. 

Theory had gotten him some of the way, but after ten minutes or so of his ministrations Barbara had started making _noises_ , mostly ones that slid dangerously between pleasure and extreme distress, and tuning his response had proved difficult with her thighs around his skull, but then there'd been her fists in his hair, tugging and tousling and emptying fire down his spine, _her hands pouring shivers down the length of where his horns should be, oh but if her hands her good hands her magic hands on his horns oh_ \--

Suffice to say that noises had multiplied (even if his were somewhat muffled) enough that there had suddenly been the creak of a basement door and a child's voice hesitantly querying, "Mom?", prompting Barbara to throw Walter off, yank a faded blue bathrobe out from the pile, and hurry up the stairs, strangely collected if flushed.

"There's monster noises in the vents."

"No, honey, I'm still fixing the washer -- " Barbara's voice had trailed off, and Walter, panting on a pile of laundry mercifully obstructed by the furnace, had been forced to take quick stock of his life and proclivities.

Just as he'd made up his mind to collect his jacket and scarper, there had been the distinctive sound of someone descending the stairs, and he'd peered out to see Barbara yank the washer dial into action, starting up the familiar racket of the drive belt. She'd turned to him, expression radiant and terrifying. There was something in her hand he'd last seen in the medicine cabinet. It was not a balloon. 

In theory, he'd had a say in the matter. Theory didn't count for much.

He was dysphoric and euphoric and frustrated and confused and pleased and consumed with dread, and his arm seemed to have gone to sleep. Any attempt to rectify this last development would likely wake Barbara, and that was a conversation he intended to forestall as long as possible.

As if sensing his discomfort, she shifted against his side, mumbling something about needing blood samples from a vending machine before burying her face in his armpit. After she stilled again, he let his freed hand wander down the crease between her shoulderblades, trailing over the ridges of her vertebrae, exploring the weft and weave of hard muscle under the subtle tension of her skin. 

Not stone. Not remotely close. Calcium, iron, copper, carbon . . . but bound up with decay, and subject to a much crueler passage of time. 

Otto was doubtless waiting at the apartment by now; it was well past midnight. Walter's car was still in the school's parking lot. Fragwa was due to report on the state of the storm drains.

The shadow of Barbara's eye socket was unaccountably arresting. He eased her glasses off her face, laid them carefully to one side, and resigned himself to dreading the dawn, as all monsters must.

 

_That thing you speak of, I took it for a man_

 

_the Changeling hordes pressing relentlessly around the walls of Mankind, claws grasping and tearing at the bricks, turning sandstone into clay tablets into black stone and molding it into the shape of a great arch, and the hero was there, young, too young, a boy staring through its threshold, utterly alone but for the hoary creature (horned) that trailed a step behind, whispering of how the monster therein might be slain --_

Walter Strickler awoke in terror of something lodged into his lower back and a strange taste in his mouth. Memories of decidedly suboptimal combat situations insisted that he'd been stabbed in his kidneys, but the pipes and floorboards directly overhead seemed to indicate that whatever had happened, knives had not been involved.

Further analysis determined he had been sleeping on a beer bottle lodged under a pile of sweaty laundry. As for the sensation in his mouth --

Walter groaned out loud as the events of the last twenty-four hours caught up with him. After ruing the day he'd been quarried, he slowly stood up and surveyed the situation. He was alone, still in her basement. His spine felt as though Irishksial had taken him out for another round of play. There was . . . _something_ hanging off his lower extremity, a something he had until very recently assumed would never exist in conjunction with any activities said extremity could possibly undertake. Gingerly, he rolled it off and stowed it inside the empty bottle. 

Someone was moving around upstairs, and daylight was shining through the basement windows. Though clad in flesh at the moment (and how), it was just as paralyzing. 

After narrowly staving off a panic attack, Walter resolved to clean himself up as much as possible and quit the Lake Residence with whatever dignity could be salvaged. His face and body reeked, though at least his own clothes had been spared most of the night's more fragrant activities. Repeated attempts at smoothing his quiff into shape merely turned it into a deranged cockscomb. He could hardly go upstairs looking as though he'd spent the night in the washing machine, so -- after making sure that the upstairs door was closed and activity distant -- he reverted to stone.

His reflection sighed back at him from the glass of the dryer window, shaking its horned head. "You've really done it this time, old fool," he growled, and they rolled their bulbous eyes in tandem.

Slightly too late, he recognized the faint creak of a the door opening, and the careless footfalls of a child on the steps, quick at first, then slowing as though dumbstruck. Stricklander's eyes flicked left, caught Jim's.

It was something of an understatement to say the boy looked surprised.

After several Ice Ages passed, Stricklander spoke, having finally gauged the correct pitch of voice so as to be A) unrecognizable as Walter Strickler and B) nonthreatening, at least as much a seven-foot tall troll in one's basement can hope to be. "You . . . er . . . people don't keep any toothpaste down here, do you?"

"No," Jim said.

"Drat."

"Are you a monster?"

"That's open to interpretation."

"Why do you need toothpaste?"

"Why does anyone need toothpaste?"

"To brush their teeth."

"Exactly."

Jim -- keeping his eyes on Stricklander -- started back up the stairs. "Mom?" Vague sounds of conversation ensued from somewhere overhead. 

By the time Jim thundered back down -- clutching a tube of toothpaste -- Walter had managed to wipe the worst (or best) of Barbara from his face and could pass as human in most important senses of the word. "Ah, Jim; good morning." He began making a show of loading the now filthy laundry into the washer, as though this was something random family friends might be doing at this time of day.

"Where'd he go?" The boy barely seemed to register Walter's presence. "Where's the monster?"

"Monster?" He frowned, as though mystified. "Jim, I'm afraid it's only me down here."

 

_Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man_

 

"He was green, and had yellow eyes, and his hair was all feathers -- " Jim was following his mother around the kitchen, waving his arms about in excitement. "And he had a growly voice, and he wasn't wearing pants -- "

Barbara had initially greeted Walter with what he suspected was a carefully-calibrated attempt at seeming casual while motherly, though it was evident that Jim's basement discovery was throwing this for a loop. "Huh. Um. You know, I think only Walter was down there, honey; you must have seen him and thought -- "

"No!" Jim looked genuinely aggrieved. "It wasn't him, it was a monster." He glanced at his guest in sudden confusion. "Why were you in our basement?"

"I was -- "

"Walt is trying to help me fix the washer, sweetie." Barbara was busying herself over a griddle, ostensibly making pancakes. "Remember? Those noises? We're tightening the drive belt." She fiddled with a fashion scarf knotted strategically around her neck.

"Who's got a loose belt?" queried Gran-Gr -- _Evelyn_ from the other half of the table, her hearing aid starting to shriek. "Did somebody's pants fall down?"

Walter was saved from a round of embarrassing explanation by a tug on his sleeve. "I _saw_ it," pleaded Jim, desperation shining in the depths of those bright eyes. "I _did_."

"Green, you say? Interesting. Horns or no horns?" He resisted the urge to add _and if so, how handsome were they_?

Jim nodded furiously. "Uh-huh! Green. And . . . I _think_ it had horns."

"And he spoke to you?" He leant forward, gaze level. "Remarkable. Trolls don't usually have much to do with humans." And some, he thought, have had quite a lot to do with humans; he was grateful for that toothpaste. 

"Trolls?"

"The children of the Earth; keepers of old Time and the secret lore of stone." Walter found himself sitting down by the table, wondering if this was taking a liberty. "Sometimes cruel, often merely indifferent."

"Was he gonna eat me?" Jim's excited tone indicated that this would be as fascinating an outcome as being spared. "Do they eat people?"

"Only the most vicious of their number do so. A peace was brokered long ago between most trolls and humans, so generally you won't even see one unless he's passing through." Barbara was giving him a look of mixed consternation and interest; the pancakes she was minding had started to smoke. "Many of them _do_ eat socks, though I can't think why."

Jim whipped around in alarm. "Mom! Trolls are eating my socks!"

"They're just lost in the dryer, Jim. Everyone loses socks -- "

Jim clutched the sides of his head. "They're _everywhere_?"

"Goofball," she said fondly, "come help me with breakfast. I think I'm messing it up." She glanced at Walter. "Will you accept a pancake for services rendered?"

He hesitated. "Well . . . I do have rehearsal in an hour . . ."

Jim -- deputized into turning down the heat on the electric griddle and thinning the batter with milk -- spun around. "Do trolls live in basements?"

"No, not as a rule." He leaned back in his chair, pretending not to notice that Barbara had just laid a fork and knife by his elbow. "They do live almost exclusively underground, of course."

"Why?"

A cup of coffee had materialized by his silverware; he picked it up with gratitude. "Why, sunlight turns them to dead stone. It's dangerous for trolls -- "

"But does this one live in our basement?" Jim had lost interest in flipping pancakes and was now all but hovering in front of Walter's face. "There were noises last night. What if he tries to eat my mom?"

Once again, Walter choked on coffee; once again, Barbara came to his rescue, pounding his back while issuing assurances. "Jim, sweetie, you don't need to worry. I know Krav Maga, remember? I'll flip any mean old troll that tries to pounce on me." She glanced down in concern as Walter began giggle-retching hysterically. "You okay?"

"Eurghm," he gasped. "Yes. Yes, I think I'll take that pancake, if you're offering."

It was burnt, although subsequent pancakes that Jim had supervised were much more palatable. If Walter had dreaded any potential awkwardness with the other inmates of the house, it quickly dissipated as breakfast unfolded. Evelyn was unlikely to have heard any compromising sounds thanks to her encroaching deafness, while Jim now believed that a monster had moved in downstairs. Neither grandparent nor child questioned Walter's presence at table, the former distracted by her crossword puzzle, the latter hungrily asking about trolls.

"So you don't think we should set a trap?" Jim repeated for the fourteenth time. "Because I can make a trap with laundry baskets and a rope and those bricks in the corner -- "

"Uh, you will not," his mother interrupted. "Gotta keep the foundation intact, kiddo." She shot Walter a smoldering look over the rim of her mug.

"Is there a raccoon in the basement again?" Evelyn enquired, looking up from the ongoing mystery of eighteen across, starting with "D", antonym for 'candid'.

"No, Gran-Gran -- "

"Do you think if I leave a thing of toothpaste down there, he'll be friendly?" Jim mused aloud, as though struck by the idea. "Or socks? How do you make friends with a troll?" He frowned. "I don't want him to eat my Gun Robot socks."

Walter resisted the impulse to tousle the boy's hair. "Jim, any troll that knew you would count you as a friend. But toothpaste might not hurt." He glanced at the wall clock, then caught Barbara's eye. "I've a story with trolls in it that you might like. Perhaps someone could read it to you, once you tire of Gilgamesh?" He rose, clearing his place. "I'll need to be going now," he said, strangely reluctant to leave. "Lovely breakfast. Which reminds me, thank you for yesterday's sandwich, Jim. Very competent."

The boy cocked his head to one side. "Would a troll eat a sandwich?"

"I would," he responded. "Barbara? Walk me out?"

"Okay, I officially understand _nothing_ about child psychology," she said, as soon as the front door was behind her. "Swear to god, Walt, he was just the most upset little kid ever last night, looked like the dictionary entry for 'miserable', and now he's hyper and back to normal because he thinks he saw a monster in the basement?" She shook her head. "Great improvising, by the way." A cough. "So."

"So," he conceded. 

"Thanks for your help with the washer. Last night."

"Yes." He heard himself return a cough and was annoyed. "We, er . . . we make a good team, even if we didn't quite get it to work."

She had tilted her head upward, ever so slightly. "Yeah?"

"Yes." But, he thought, trying to rally the destroying words, _but_ . . .

But she was smiling at him, and there was sun, and birdsong, and the sounds of a boy pretending that wooden spoons were swords, and in spite of his back and the smell and the rising sense of terror that he'd lost control, Walter was _content_ , that most rare of states for as grasping as soul as his. 

_Cold hells, why not_. "We ought to have dinner, soon. Some evening when it suits us both." He leant in, pitching his voice low. "Somewhere not a park bench or a car. Or Giovanni's," he added hastily, seeing a completely different way this could go wrong. "Would that please the lady?"

Barbara passed him her hand; he raised it to his lips. "The lady is more than fine with this arrangement." The hand cradled the side of his jaw, sweet tremors surging down his neck as she pulled him closer. "But, Walt? Babe?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Take a bath, first."

 

 

_Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet fool?_

 

Marcus kicked the nearest chair to him, causing it to crash against the side of the bookcase supporting the Antamonstrum crystal; Walter suppressed a full-body wince. "Mr. Robinson," he began with little enthusiasm, "I know you're disappointed -- "

"I'm not disappointed," the boy retorted, grabbing the recently-reprimanded chair and leaning on it with extreme prejudice. "Disappointed? Me? No, not like I finally learned how to juggle five balls at once! Or all my lines for Scene Four!" Freshly angry with the chair, he kicked it again, this time towards the center of Walter's office; its third occupant, Drew, watched it skid and stall in sympathetic dejection. "This is such B.S."

"I shouldn't have used so much dye," mumbled Drew. "It was my fault."

Though Walter had rallied himself most admirably after the sudden departure of the Family Lake, a subtle shadow of doom had lingered over the auditorium. Not that it would have been immediately apparent from onstage, of course -- especially not with the lights in everyone's eyes.

Even in its preliminary stages, the young actors had embraced _King Lear_ with an enthusiasm that was truly commendable and which, in retrospect, should have been supervised more carefully. Introduced to a story explicitly about the madness and fallibility of adults, about dissolving hierarchies, fighting sisters, dueling brothers, the students had found ready outlets for the pains of the adolescent condition. The incidental bawdiness, barrages of insults, and outbursts of violence inherent to the play had proved just a little too popular, to the point where Regan, Gloucester, and the props department had been called before Ms. Janeth and told in no uncertain terms that throwing gummy eyeballs into the audience would result in a failing grade. Their workaround was a (rather ingenious) use of gel packets which, unfortunately, were highly-pressurized and over-full and probably would have been better suited to a production directed by Quentin Tarantino. 

"I think there were other factors at work," Walter replied diplomatically, overlooking how the rest of the performance involved everyone slipping on red corn syrup until all actors looked as though they'd been murdered three scenes too early. "To begin with, I'm afraid that the school board was unfamiliar with the actual text of the play, to say nothing of its darker content." Which was probably why, after some very heated calls and conferences, Ms. Janeth had shakily announced to the cast the next day that they would be doing _A Midsummer's Night Dream_ instead.

The deposed Fool threw up his hands. "But all that stuff is in the play! All that dirty stuff they hated, that's actual Shakespeare --"

Walter held up a hand for silence. "Ms. Janeth's choice of play was uncontroversial while no one knew it, but now that they do, you've got a new play to learn -- "

"Screw that." Marcus folded his arms. "I didn't sign up to be in a stupid play about idiots falling in love and fairies." He glanced at Drew. "You're not doing it, are you?"

Drew coughed. "I mean . . . props, maybe, but I don't know if I'd . . . act."

"See?" Marcus glowered out the window. "It sucks. They only did this because of politics, anyway."

Walter cocked his head, amused in spite of himself. "How so?"

"Oh, wake up. The whole play's about old farts getting it rubbed in their faces that they don't know everything and how bad they hosed up their kids." Marcus slunk towards the door. "Truth to power; look where that got us."

"Yeah," Drew admitted, watching his friend leave. "I kinda think it was mostly the blood, though." He gave Walter a sheepish look. "So you're not in this one?"

Walter tapped his keypen against the side of his desk. "I'm afraid not. Lear was a bit of necessary casting, but _Dream_ has no need of this old man. I'm sure I'll find things to occupy me." He swiveled slightly towards the wall of his sanctum, safely cloaked in books. "And you'll have a good time, I'm sure."

Drew shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Um. Thanks for being . . . cool about . . . you know."

Walter raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know there was anything to be 'cool' about, or indeed what that entails, but you're welcome."

"Just -- " His student sighed, glancing away. "I wanted to try."

After a long moment, Walter offered, "I've lived long enough to recognize that often the roles we are assigned at our birth are, ironically enough, not the ones we were born to play." He glanced down at the his copy of the script in the wastebin. "Slaves meant to be lords, lords meant to be ladies, fools meant to be wise. Shakespeare knew something of this." 

"I guess." Drew stuck his hands into the depths of his baggy, shape-concealing pants, awkwardly pivoting on his heel as though to leave. 

In deference to a fellow-creature of occluded nature, Walter added, "You carried the role of Cordelia beautifully, for what it was worth. She's meant to speak truth, and you brought that to the fore." He caught Drew's eye in a direct stare, holding it as kindly as he could. "May you bring it to all your future roles, whatever they are."

Drew shook his head, throat visibly constricting. "Uh, I gotta go . . ."

Walter sat in thoughtful silence for several minutes before retreating into the inner sanctum of his office. 

 

In Arcadia, land of near-perpetual warmth, summer arrived accompanied by the wailing of sirens and the smell of charred masonry, a scent still lingering on the trenchcoat of a dark, sullen man with round spectacles as he made his way back to Frankfurt. In a valley cradled by sunlight, two repurposed Fools -- against all odds -- reemerged in the lines of a different play, riddled with faeries and depleted of tragedies. Elsewhere, a boy cycled through endless variations of nonlethal traps for fantastic beasts before losing interest in monsters and discovering mopeds. 

And Walter Strickler -- to his great and eternal annoyance -- had fallen in love.


	6. portunus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Walter Strickler experiences tentacle difficulties.

_1\. Hors-d’œuvre._

From behind a chain-link fence, Walter Strickler surveyed the seat of his future kingdom.

BIFRONS CONSTRUCTION  
HEAD PROTECTION REQUIRED BEHIND THIS POINT  
KEEP OUT  
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Broken rebar and scorched bricks were heaped into loose piles that dwindled in size from day to day. An excavator, abandoned for the night, loomed over the site like a dragon mantling over the ruins of some forsaken village. 

Following the inferno that had engulfed Giovanni's, there had been an inquiry into whether arson had been involved or not. Otto's natural flair for sabotage compounded by the questionable engineering of the pizza oven led investigators to rule it out relatively quickly, and the beleaguered owners had been only too happy to throw in the towel and sell. 

The bidding war that had ensued had been easy enough to navigate, considering three of the major companies involved were shell organizations owned by the Janus Order. After squeezing out the competition, the site had been acquired with a minimum of fuss, with a series of upscale urban apartments promised to go up in a few years' time. The Arcadian planning council had grumbled a bit at that, until it was pointed out that mixed-use blocks were very _au courant_ , and excellent for the uptown revitalization program.

Walter glanced down the length of the street, then at the adjoining block. An upscale vintage shop intended to move into the space occupied by the old laundromat within the year, and the existing sushi bar was overhauling its dated 80's aesthetic with a deliberate 80's aesthetic in hopes that an expensive saltwater tank, backlit with neon that seemed to be thoroughly confusing the fish inside, would prove enticing to the future tenants of those luxury apartments.

Of course, those tenants would be Changelings. 

Presumably it would be incumbent on him to move into one of these units once they were completed, but somehow the prospect of rent-free living with granite countertops didn't seem quite as appealing as it had when he'd first devised this plan. Managing a good life-work balance was hard enough without worrying about an interdimensional portal underneath one's bathtub, to say nothing of the loss of privacy.

The need for privacy had developed some new complications.

* * *

Unwritten rules have similarly unwritten amendments, codicils, and subtexts. The code of Changelings had three commandments (technically two), the third of which allowed for some creative leeway in interpretation of one's duties. 

In panicked moments when Stricklander's paranoia flared up slightly more than usual, his mind cycled through excuses: _I've been here too long, people were beginning to ask questions. Bachelors who teach are scrutinized in a particular way; it was starting to affect the mission. There's no danger of being compromised; the woman is desperate for companionship and accepts it on my terms, which naturally don't involve any physical --_

Barbara's sharp chin nuzzled between his shoulderblades, a surprisingly pleasant sensation for someone so accustomed to watching his back. "Tell me about the dig, again."

"Which one?"

"The one in Spain." An arm fell over his chest as the distinct and now-unmistakable contours of her body pressed up against his spine. "With the crowns."

"Ah, the Visigothic treasure. That orchard . . ." There had indeed been a dig, crosses and crowns and other miraculous wonders pulled from the earth -- a hundred and fifty years before Walter Strickler, given age: forty.

He'd told Barbara about them in the sleepy post-coital haze of a previous encounter, waxing eloquent on the nature of her eyes, comparing them to the sapphires bedecking those votive offerings. She'd been more interested in the history than in the compliment, and -- vain of him, but her admiration never failed to quicken his pulse -- he'd related a little of their recovery, omitting details pertaining to the Order's actual interests. She had listened with such rapacious intensity that it only later occurred to him he'd potentially erred in doing so. 

"What did the letters on the crown say, again?" Barbara's voice buzzed against his skin. "The hanging ones."

" _Reccesvinthvs Rex Offeret_ , or something to that effect." Walter stretched, slowly turning to face her. "'Reccesuinth the King offered this', in translation."

"Why in Latin, though?" She nestled her head against his arm, hair tousled and slightly damp, and traced an idle finger over his sternum. It was simultaneously worrying and gratifying how palpitations still ensued.

"Why not?"

"Well, they were barbarians, weren't they?" 

Walter attempted mightily not to frown, instead yawning. "Mmph. That largely depends on who's asking."

"Me," Barbara said impishly, flicking his chin.

"You do realize," he growled into the side of her neck, "that any metric determining Visigoths to be barbarians would regard you much the same, Young Atlas?" 

" _Doctor_ Atlas, thank you very much," she murmured. "Anyway, I know Latin."

"Only in a medical context." Walter tweaked her ear. "And as Latin was the language of empire, and as they'd started out wanting nothing more than a land to call their own, happy to serve under Roman laws -- "

"You always sound so hurt when I ask about these guys," she teased. "Like it's personal." 

Walter sighed, sublimated. "I've attempted to explain Pax Romana to tenth-graders all this past week. Somehow, I didn't anticipate further history lessons in my off-hours." 

Barbara began kneading the back of his neck; it took all the strength he had not to whimper in ecstasy. "Wow. They must be giving you more grief than usual; you're a rock back here."

Technically accurate, he reflected, though at the moment never so grateful to be a simulacrum of flesh and skin. "Mmmph. Hail, blest Physician . . ."

"This is what happens when I let you out of my sight for a couple of weeks, huh?"

"I've suffered abysmally, my dear." 

"Would've gone easier on you, if I'd known."

"I was born to suffer."

Amiable silence overtook the room, complementing the steady dwindling of the light. He suspected Barbara might be nodding off -- a less than stellar development, given that the goblins were due back around nightfall, and he had a videoconference at ten. If he wanted to clean himself up and remove all traces of his guest from the apartment, it would be best to have her heading out the door soon. 

She stretched in a languorous fashion that made it difficult for Walter to maintain his resolve. "Hmm. Walt, what time is it?"

"Quarter to five." He stroked her arm, deriving satisfaction at the gooseflesh that resulted. "I expect you'll be needing to go?" 

"We could order a pizza," Barbara mused. "Get some really awful box wine. Spend the whole night shouting at stupid hospital dramas . . ."

"Darling, I'd thought you'd had enough of hospital dramas."

"Yeah," She sighed. "And there's the kid."

"Who has doubtless supervised a much more delectable repast than mere pizza." Walter sat up and leaned against the headboard, possibly in an attempt to steer Barbara towards action, possibly in an attempt to distract himself from her inviting collarbones. "In any case, I'm afraid I volunteered to serve as a test proctor tonight, so these greasy bacchanalias will have to wait."

She stood up; Walter resisted the urge to pull her back down. "'Greasy Bacchanalias'. Sounds like the worst art-school band ever." She plucked her glasses off the nightstand. "Is, uh . . . is next Tuesday still on? Dinner?"

"Absolutely." Walter leant forward. "I'll be there with bells on." 

Barbara's cheeks flushed. "Gotta warn you: Gran-Gran's been forcing me to make the latkes. I'll try not to burn every single one, but . . ." She arched against the doorframe in a provoking pose; it did not quite appeal to troll sensibilities, but he was inclined to grade generously where Barbara was involved. "Ergh. How dirty am I?"

"Filthy," he said, fondly.

 

* * *

 

The apartment wasn't dirty, but it still had to be cleaned.

Ostensibly, the head of the Janus Order didn't have to justify his actions to subordinates, especially when they were goblins. Given the haphazard process of whatever passed for cognition in those greasy little minds, he wasn't sure they'd even particularly grasp the nature of his . . .

. . . _relationship_ to Barbara Lake, but it seemed better to avoid drawing attention to it. In any case, his personal inclinations leant towards austerity, so it was only natural that any evidence of the past two hours be erased, and if the head of the Janus Order felt it was beneath his dignity to strip his own bed, well, he only had himself to blame. 

Walter had half-heartedly attempted to break off his dalliance with Barbara several times now, not that the average observer would have noticed. Barbara certainly hadn't. Admittedly, Walter wasn't sure he could have pointed to concrete instances of when he'd been trying to end things; distraction set in too quickly.

Things.

Still tea, taken whenever her new schedule allowed. A dinner at Chez Lake, once or twice a month, with a small scowling chaperone who reliably forgot his animosity as soon as he was asked to demonstrate a new cooking technique. A stolen few hours in Walter's apartment, when the stars aligned. It was strange how such a massive upheaval in his perception of himself totaled less time than he spent teaching, and indeed rarely impacted the work of the Initiative. Anyone who levied a charge of fraternization against Stricklander would have to admit that even his weakness was well-ordered.

Traces of tinted lip balm were wiped from the rim of her mug. Red hairs were unwound from the trap in the bathtub and thrown in the disposal. It was too late to launder the sheets, but throwing them in the closet was a good enough solution -- goblins hated the scent of mothballs. Walter surveyed his reclaimed domain with mingled satisfaction and wistfulness. His, alone; him, alone.

"Getting maudlin, aren't we," he snorted, lighting incense in the brazier between the two icons of sacred hospitality and its fearsome consequences. He'd been relying on the smell to mask any residual odors for some time now; Mrs. Winters from down the hall was starting to give him suspicious looks. Doubtless she'd regard recreational drug use as more instrumental to the downfall of civilization then a carnivorous troll army. 

He put a record on and reheated some soup. It was only a matter of time before the unmistakable tapping at the window heralded the arrival of some very different company, pouring into the apartment like Hell's raccoons.

Even after centuries of talking to the wretches, it usually took a few tries for Stricklander to glean the meaning of what goblins were trying to convey. Linguistically, their language stemmed from the same tree that Trollish did, but it wasn't agglutinative, had too many inflections, and was spoken by idiots. "Wait. What do you mean, 'she's here'?"

" _Waka chaka! Wagga cha chaka wag_ \-- "

"'Angry-sword-hurting-troll' -- who is -- " Sudden misgivings seized him. "Nomura?"

The two goblins glanced up simultaneously, one nodding vigorously, the other giving him a scabby thumbs-up. It was rash of him to throw his spoon at them for that, but unavoidable in the heat of the moment. " _Where_?"

" _Wagga nuk sug chaka_ ," whined Fragwa reproachfully. " _Waka_ \-- "

"Yes, obviously 'California', you simpleton, but where? Arcadia?"

The answer -- mercifully -- was no. She'd found the Janus Order's radio frequency and appeared at the given coordinates, currently just outside of Borrego Springs; the operative stationed at the drop point had been surprised to find her on his doorstep demanding an audience with Stricklander. He supposed he should be grateful she hadn't shown up here after that debacle with Kanjigar's idiot son, but even knowing she was on this continent again set his teeth on edge.

Walter exhaled slowly, then stalked to the kitchen and poured himself a very generous portion of merlot. Idiot sons and Nomura had a bad track record. She'd lost Bular just a few months ago.

Blasphemous to use Gunmar's words of opprobrium in regard to his own son, perhaps, but Bular was little better than a dog. He required constant exercise, or he started chewing on the wrong things and leaving hideous messes for someone else to clean up. Nomura could hardly be expected to keep a hold on his leash, but she'd too readily given up on trying to locate him. And now she was perilously close to where she'd mistakenly outed herself as a Changeling to another troll, and failed to kill him on top of that.

Walter finished off his glass. He already had a series of videoconferences on the night's schedule; now there was even more to do. "The chains of commanding," he muttered to himself.

Fragwa nodded sagely. " _Waka chaka_."

 

_2\. Soup._

 

Teaching, as previously stated, was good for the mind and kept one's thoughts in sound stead, but having to do so while also being in charge of a global conspiracy became complicated just after midterms. Holidays didn't help.

Thanksgiving Break had been dominated by the task of keeping the Order in order, flying down to the factory in Mexico City where all identified components of Killahead were held and catalogued. The estimate provided to Ade had been slightly optimistic; the actual completion rate of the Bridge was hanging around the low eighties. Even with the addition of the hand-sized chunk he'd personally escorted to this reunion, the schematic looked woefully incomplete. Once or twice, a technician raised the subject of the missing stones in Moscow; Stricklander stared them into submission. 

Otto had been there two weeks before him, leaving the usual array of notes that remained cryptic even after being decoded. Ade called -- frantic -- from LaGuardia, where his flight was being held up by weather, insisting that he be allowed to audit the New York division's expenditure accounts. There might have been some consolation had Walter been allowed to get out into the city -- walk the plazas, visit Templo Mayor, drown some esoteric sorrows in a pulquería, enmesh himself in the beautiful nervous vibration of the streets -- but it was all work, and meetings, spreadsheets and fluorescent lighting.

Barbara had broached the subject of Thanksgiving a month beforehand; he'd been prepared. A conference in Chicago, how sad, what bad timing, but he'd already agreed to meet an old friend there. She'd concealed her disappointment, hugged him goodbye at the airport, and appeared in numerous photos on Gran-Gran's public FriendFace feed, laughing and eating and spilling gravy. Brent was in one of these photos, dropping off a pie.

Walter returned late at night to his apartment with a palpable sense of frustration and wasted time, as well as a nasty case of Montezuma's revenge. It was only natural that when Barbara gingerly extended another invitation for dinner, he'd accepted in a heartbeat. 

 

* * *

 

Christmas had not always been in winter. Nor was winter always cold and snowy, and never in all his peregrinations had Walter made any private observance of that holiday beyond a long soak in some good port. After watching every successive age and culture throwing more customs, controversies, and half-recalled pagan rituals into the pot, it seemed less a religious occasion than a collective fever dream that might or might not involve chocolate oranges.

Hanukkahs he'd seen fewer of, and subsequently felt unjustified in critiquing how well its modern adherents preserved the ritual, or more specifically, how Gran-Gr -- how Evelyn had, given that her late husband's religious observance had been limited to playing klezmer at fundraisers. Thus, trying to arrive at the Lake Residence before sundown, hoping that the chocolate coins hadn't melted in the car.

Thus, incidentally, an aluminum Christmas tree and a chipped ceramic Nativity set of indeterminate age in the entryway. Apparently, Gun Robot had accompanied the Magi on their journey to Bethlehem. 

"I'm not entirely sure that isn't sacrilege," he said to Jim, currently lolling around on the hallway floor next to Toby. 

"Nuh-uh, it's Metal Blue Weapon Robot," Jim replied, lazily swooping a pterodactyl through the air. 

"Who's Zacridge?" Toby looked up from where he was menacing several shepherds with a plastic tyrannosaur; they were sore afraid, indeed. "I've seen like maybe every episode two times -- "

Jim collided the pterosaur with an angel. "Not the movies, though."

"So Zacridge is in the movies? Which ones?"

"'Sacrilege', Tobias. It means -- never mind." Walter hadn't been a man of the cloth for years, and given the amalgamated nature of Christmas, there might well be giant mechanoids folded into the mix in a few decades' time. 

He followed the smell of frying oil to the kitchen, where Gran-Gr -- where Barbara's grandmother was embarking on another round of latke wrangling. The small pile of burnt haystacks accumulating off to the side indicated that Barbara's culinary abilities were operating at normal levels. 

"Gran-Gran, I really think you're being morbid. You're doing fine -- "

"Barbie, don't let it go too much longer, it's getting brown -- "

"-- I know it's important for you to pass this on, but really, you're making it sound like you're at death's door." Barbara sighed. "Is this because of the ingrown toenail? I know surgery risks go up for seniors, but -- "

"Barbie, it's burning."

"Really? That doesn't sound good; have you noticed any inflammation -- "

"BARBIE." The smoke detector went off; not for the first time if the irritated howls from the next room were any indication. Walter tapped the reset button while the women frantically attempted to rescue the latke and Jim poked his head through the divider.

"Mom, you should just let me do it!"

"No. Absolutely not. Hot oil can give you horrible burns, Jim -- "

A lifetime's cultivation of split-second reflexes allowed Walter to keep Barbara from becoming a self-demonstrating instance, slamming the precariously-teetering pan back towards the center of the stovetop while putting himself between her and the spattering oil. "There! No harm done."

"Oh, thank goodness," breathed Evelyn. "My stars, Mr. Strickler, when did you come in?" Her hearing aid warbled as though trying to replicate the smoke alarm.

"Am I late?"

"No," Barbara said, squeezing his arm; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jim depart. "Mrs. Domzalski couldn't make it, so it's just you and Toby on tonight's guest list." 

"I got a Gun Robot combiner set," Toby bragged, holding up an ambiguously-formed piece of plastic that Walter intuited was some sort of missile launcher. "With laser firing action! Pew pew pew pewpewpew!"

"Good for the eyes," Walter said, and prayed that seating was not already assigned. 

Mercifully, when the time came for dinner Toby and Jim gravitated towards the jelly donuts piled at the table's far end, leaving him between two women and two piles of latkes: burnt and unburnt. "You don't have to eat mine," Barbara assured him. He took one out of loyalty and was quickly reminded why he didn't put much stock in that sort of thing.

"It takes a while to get it down," Gran-Gr -- Evelyn said to her granddaughter. "I had to learn latkes from your Auntie Lana -- Great-Auntie Lana, that is. She cooked everything you could ever think of, and the first thing she said to me when she heard we were married, she said, 'Well, you'll never get my brother to make a dinner to save his life, so you'd better come over --'"

"I'm a good cook," Jim interrupted. "I bet I can make latkes. Mom, you need me to do it with you, okay?"

Barbara caught Walter's eye and winked. "We'll try tomorrow night, maybe." 

Toby bit into a sufganiyah with exaggerated relish, its contents spilling out onto the plate. "BLAARRRGGH! Its guts fell out!"

"Gross!" Jim promptly did the same. "Mine's dead, too!" He threw back his head, sticky glaze smeared across his face, and made a dinosaurian howl of triumph.

Barbara snapped her fingers. "C'mon. No t-rexes at the dinner table." 

Walter helped himself to another pancake, less singed. "The shallots in these are lovely, Mrs. Steiner."

"Thank you, Walter." She beamed. "I can always make more, it's no trouble -- "

"It's Walt, and thank y--" 

"Do you have plans for the rest of the holidays?" 

"Well, I -- that is -- "

Jim craned his neck towards his mother. "When's my dad coming for Christmas?" 

Without taking his gaze from Evelyn, Walter could feel Barbara's expression freeze. "Oh -- honey, we've already called him twice. If you want to leave another message, you can, but I don't think he meant what he said."

"But Dad said -- "

"Jim, sweetie, I've been trying to get a hold of him for a long time now, and you know he doesn't -- "

"Couldn't we message him? On FriendFace?" 

"Jim, let's -- let's talk about this after dinner, okay?" Barbara gave him a wan smile. "Eat your stegosaurus."

"It's a triceratops," Jim declared in triumph, and eviscerated his donut accordingly.

 

* * *

It was interesting, Walter reflected, that -- even after all his centuries of service in the courts of the great and good, in the ranks of chamberlains and confessors -- that situational etiquette still evaded him where Barbara Lake and family were concerned. 

He'd offer now and then to let her stay overnight at his apartment, safe in the knowledge that the answer would always be 'no' thanks to work, her concern over how Jim would take it, or her not wanting to burden her grandmother with babysitting more than usual. Given that she and Jim were still sharing a room, it was hardly feasible for him to do the same.

Barbara had attempted to be circumspect in regard to matters, but Jim had reacted to the news that his mother was dating Walter with a profound sense of betrayal and hurt. Jim also consistently glommed onto Walter at about the fifteen minute mark of a visit, switching from resentment at his presence to endless questions about the origins of words, demands to be observed in the executions of cartwheels, and speculation regarding troll lore. The mind and soul of a child contained multitudes of contradictions. 

Jim was never happy to see him. Jim never wanted him to leave.

And this, Walter observed, was why he was unable to determine the right course of action at the moment. His natural inclination was to thank everyone politely and depart, but it seemed a little too early in the evening to retire without giving offense. Gran-Gr -- Evelyn tried interrogating him about Christmas plans, although her hearing aid was acting up enough that dialogue became impossible. Barbara was carrying an odd tension in her shoulders that he instinctually wanted to soothe, but physical proximity to her seemed fraught in light of Jim's preoccupation with seeing his father. 

Right action was further complicated by Jim dragooning him into taking notes on bouillabaisse.

"This is _boring_ ," moaned Toby, mashing his face into the carpet. "We could be watching Gun Robot right now. Channel 16."

"They aren't new episodes," countered Jim, leaning furiously towards the screen and its black-and-white fish cornucopia. 

"This isn't new, either! It's from like a million billion years ago -- "

"Toby, shh!" Jim looked back over his shoulder at Walter. "Did you hear what she said? I couldn't." 

"Monkfish," supplied Walter.

"Monkeyfish?"

"No, Tobias."

" _Shh_!" Jim turned up the television's volume. Faintly, Walter could still hear the undertones of a conversation in the kitchen between the boy's mother and great-grandmother, though complicated again by the hearing aid cutting in and out. "So you just put all the fish in the pot?" 

"I believe so, yes." The hallway phone rang; he heard Barbara pick up and greet Mrs. Domzalski.

Jim glanced back at Walter, eyes sparking. "Have you had bou -- bu -- "

"Bouillabaisse? Yes, once or twice." 

"Is it good? Is it gross?" Jim lurched towards Walter's seat on the sofa, hauling himself up next to him and thrusting his bright-eyed little visage -- smeared with jelly and chocolate -- into his face. "What about all the shells?"

"Do you have to eat fish eyeballs?" Toby added, shuddering. "Why are the heads still on?"

"You're missing the episode," Walter said, amused in spite of himself. 

"Will you show me how to make it?" Jim asked, shining gaze intensifying. "I need to know how to make it."

"I've never actually made bouillabaisse, Jim -- " Walter hesitated, and then for reasons he would never entirely understand added, " -- but I'm sure if we put our heads together, we could figure it out."

"Jim, sweetie?" Barbara's voice called out from the kitchen. "Could you please come talk to me for a minute?"

Evelyn emerged and -- very pointedly -- caught Walter's eye. "Mr. Strickler -- Walt -- would you mind walking Toby back to his Nana's? She's home, now."

He took the hint. "Of course."

"Why does Jim want to make that gross soup?" Toby complained, arms laden with various plastic figurines as they shuffled down the walk. "There's like, fish brains in it."

"The brain matter remains in the skulls, you know." Walter glanced back through the menorah in the window, dimly perceiving Barbara sitting Jim down on a stool, expression tired. "They're hardly floating around."

Toby dropped a dinosaur. "I bet if he makes turkey it'll work. With the little thingies on the drumsticks."

"Turkey has its own challenges, I imagine," Walter replied, wearily. 

"Are you gonna go when his dad gets back?" Toby looked up at him guilelessly, losing another action figure. "Like in the movies? When it's Christmas and he makes dinner and Santa makes his parents get back together? Because you could still come over for -- "

"Oh look, it's your grandmother. Hullo, Mrs. Domzalski ." 

Walter made ten minutes of awkward conversation with the elderly woman, narrowly avoiding the caresses of long-haired cats that wandered in and out of the kitchen while Toby attempted to show off the aforementioned combiner set, to no success. It was annoying to realize that he'd left his jacket behind in Chez Lake -- a quick morphic shift would return it to him, but also might raise awkward questions.

Sighing, he headed back. Nothing was ever permitted to be simple, apparently.

Gran-Gr -- Barbara's grandmother was waiting for him on the porch, jacket in hand. "James isn't coming," she said by way of greeting. "Not that he ever was, but Jimmy couldn't know that."

"I expect he does now?" Walter asked. He instinctively checked his jacket pocket for the familiar weight of the keypen; it was still there.

Evelyn just shook her head. "He gets these notions. Toby doesn't help, poor baby -- it's too hard on children, not having -- " As her hearing aid began squalling again, she wrenched it out of her ear and cast it into her pocket. She fixed Walter with a knowing and weighted gaze. "Jimmy looks up to you, you know."

He managed not to flinch. "Well, he -- he obviously enjoys adult attention -- "

If she heard him, she didn't acknowledge it. "He was the only good thing Barbie ever got from his daddy. Not that I could ever say as much when they were together. We just had to grin and bear it so she wouldn't cut us off."

"I can't imagine she'd ever cut you off -- "

"That's all family ever does," Evelyn said bitterly. "Mine and Jacob's folks, Barbie and her parents. Not supposed to be that way." She shook her head. "Never mind, never mind . . . I'm going to Seattle in a few days, Mr. Strickler. If I don't see you over the holidays, I wish you all the best." 

She patted his hand and proffered a paper bag at him. "Here. More latkes."

 

_3\. Fish._

 

Turkey had indeed proved challenging.

Last spring's expedition to Cappadocia had been yet another distraction intended to divert the ire of the Order's murderous charge from Moscow -- though the Ankara division had been less than thrilled to learn that a comparatively minor issue they'd been covertly observing suddenly had to factor in Bular's badly-contained frustrations. Being Bular, he'd expressed these frustrations in a way that deliberately provoked the Trollhunter, prompting a thousand frantic conjectures from the local authorities as to why entire sections of Göreme National Park had collapsed overnight.

Once again, Kanjigar and the Skullcrusher's whelp had dueled; once again, the results had been inconclusive. Naturally, there hadn't been actual Bridge components amidst the garbage the outcasts had been hoarding, and Regional Director Faruk, never fond of Stricklander at the best of times, was doubtless wishing there existed an assassin skilled (or foolhardy) enough to cause a vacancy in the highest tier of the Order. Walter had started buying his tipple from a different store, just in case.

It was with this in mind that he dialed the Borrego Springs number, waiting for the tinny recording to begin. "You've reached Transitive Properties, LLC. Our normal office hours are -- "

He pressed a series of buttons, prompting a momentary silence before a different voice prompted, " _With whom do you wish to speak_?"

"The face behind the face." Walter surveyed the sanctum map yet again, its pinpoints denoting operatives and agents. They clustered around major metropolitan areas, with a few strategically-positioned markers here and there. He hadn't ever bothered to mark himself down, but knowing that there was one extra pin on his quadrant now --

"Stricklander," Nomura herself interrupted his thoughts, relief and apprehension mingled in her voice. "You got my message."

"You're making a bad habit of answering other people's calls, Nomura. Where's Howard?"

"Realtor business. Some snowbirds are looking at a bungalow." Her manner of speaking grew more ragged; it wouldn't surprise him if she'd slipped forms. "I need to see you."

"Really." He jammed his thumb down onto the pin in Borrego Springs, wishing there was some form of sympathetic magic that would do the same to her head. "Absent without leave since, what was it? July? With Bular similarly missing, and all manner of chaos afoot, in contradiction of both my orders and how many operational codes?" 

"Things moved fast," she growled. "Too fast. I had to improvise." A deep breath. "But you were right. The exiles had something we wanted."

"You might've sent it along."

A snort. "Not after what happened with Korshas." Her voice dropped lower. "Faruk was looking for it, too. I had to play it cool, or I'd be dealt with the same way."

"I assume you have it with you?"

"Yes." Nomura's voice grew desperate. "I can bring it to you, but -- I need to go back to Moscow. It's important."

"You're hardly in a position to bargain, Nomura," Stricklander hissed, black bile rising from deep within. "You've taken far too many liberties already. You're to wait where you are until -- and only until -- you're summoned."

"But -- what am I supposed to do here?" Nomura wailed.

"Show houses," he snapped, and ended the call. The echo of his voice reverberated against the world map in yet another instance of his commands failing to move the pieces in the way he wanted.

With a sigh, he removed the Post-It with a question mark from Asia Minor and let it drift to the floor. His gaze fell on a series of drawings he'd tacked up on the adjacent wall: Jim's schematics for trapping the basement troll with a pile of socks and a forty-ton weight.

He smiled, mirthlessly. "If only it were that simple."

 

* * *

And to complicate things further, there was the problem of the upcoming break. Berlin was ready to test some theories regarding magical resonators, which all but demanded his presence. Nairobi's director was feuding with Ade over funds for a larger facility and both Changelings had asked Stricklander to make a decision. Hong Kong wasn't picking up the phone as readily as he liked; a drop-in was probably called for just to make sure that everything was still in compliance. 

Traveling around the world at Christmas to distribute presents was arguably a more grueling task than running the Janus Order, but at least the food people left out for you was safe to eat. Then again, he hadn't been too badly provisioned for the past several dinners.

Walter poked at his reheated potato pancake, the last of at least a week's worth of latkes. Possibly it was commentary on how thin Evelyn thought he looked, but if it had been an attempt to entice him to future holiday dinners, it hadn't exactly failed.

It would be miserable, the voice of reason sternly interjected. Children running about with all manner of noisemaking devices. Maudlin television specials featuring marionettes crafted in the uncanny valley. Novelty sweaters. Elves on shelves. Bing Crosby. You didn't get where you are by succumbing to sentiment, even if there'd be Barbara, basking in the soft close glow of those kitchen lights, smiling up at you --

The phone rang, startling him out of the reverie and causing him to drop his fork. Momentary confusion was intensified by realizing it was Barbara herself on the other end of the line. 

"Hi, Walt? How're you doing?"

"Fine!" He wiped the corner of his mouth. "Fine. And you?"

"Um. Okay. This is . . . Walt, I'm so sorry to ask, but something's happened --"

"'Something'? Barbara, is everything all right?"

A sigh. "Never. I have to get down to the city early tomorrow -- some stuff fell through with Gran-Gran's flight. Stuff I can't bring Jim along for, if that means anything -- "

"Medical reasons?"

Another shaky sigh on the other end of the line. "Hopefully it's nothing. Walt, I've tried getting in touch with everyone else, but -- "

"I'd be pleased to stay with Jim." A thought occurred to him. "Wait -- Mrs. Domzalski's not available? That's odd."

"Uh, that's the other part of the problem -- " 

In undertones, Barbara (her voice, so tremulous) filled him in on the developing situation. Gran-Gran had collapsed in the terminal forty minutes after Barbara dropped her off, though she'd only learned of this after driving all they way back home thanks to Gran-Gran accidentally packing away her phone somewhere in her checked luggage. Toby was already staying overnight with them because his grandmother was at a funeral in Bakersfield. "Walt, it's a big ask, but I don't know who else to turn to right now."

His weekend's plans currently involved a long drive down to San Diego County, to have a series of unpleasant conversations with Nomura and Howard about the proper use of Initiative resources before extracting whatever it was that had been smuggled out of Turkey. 

"Darling, of course. I'll be over in the morning."

 

* * *

 

"I'm hungry," Toby announced for the fourteenth time. "Is there anything else to eat?"

Walter Strickler undertook yet another series of breathing exercises. "My dear Tobias, as of eight-twenty this morning, you have ingested no fewer than three frozen waffles, a toaster pastry, half an apple, and most of my scone." He narrowed his eyes at the child in the vague hope that his disapproval conveyed. "Surely, that pit can't be bottomless?"

It didn't. "What about cereal? Jim, do you guys have cereal?"

By way of response, Jim motioned despondently towards the cabinet. His own waffles were mostly untouched, other than having been cut into squares and shuffled around the margins of his plate. 

Walter coughed, awkwardly. "Would you . . . care for some more milk, Jim? Juice?" The boy merely shook his head. He knew Barbara had told Jim just enough to keep him from worrying about Gran-Gr -- Evelyn, but he was his mother's child, doubtless requiring some form of action to combat despair. "Did you boys have any plans for today?" 

Toby shrugged. "Gun Robot."

"Meaning -- you're going to play Gun Robot, or watch Gun Robot -- "

"Yes." A fistful of cereal wedged itself between Toby's crooked little teeth. "I figured out how to put my combiners together!" Puffed rice sprayed onto the table.

"Wonderful." Walter made a note to move the glass ornaments on the tree somewhere safer, and also to hide the spoons. "Well, don't let me stop you." He rose to wash his plate, wondering how much of the house's instant coffee reserves were going to be depleted in order to get him through the day.

"Oh, and we gotta write letters to Santa," Toby added. "Before the mailman comes."

Walter paused, mid-scrub. "I didn't know you went in for that sort of thing, Tobias."

"What?"

"Writing to Santa?" He glanced over his shoulder. "I'm fairly certain the Maccabees would not approve."

"Santa's magic. Doesn't count."

"I don't even know where to start with that." He shook his head and resumed the dishes. "In any case, you have that combiner set; I wouldn't have thought you wanted for anything else."

"It's not for me," Toby said, earnestly. "For Jim. So his dad comes back for Christmas Dinner."

Walter nearly dropped his plate, catching it just in time. "Ah. Toby, that's -- that's rather a tall order for the jolly old elf; I'm not sure -- "

"My dad's not coming," Jim replied dully. 

"But he will," Toby insisted. "Did you go on your mom's FriendFace -- "

In the reflection of the window, Walter saw the boy's face crumple in misery and rage. "He said he's _not coming_." 

"But -- "

Jim slammed down his fork and pushed himself away from the table and out of the kitchen. Toby slowly put the box of cereal down, expression stunned. 

"I don't think I'd keep bringing that up, if I wanted to be a good friend," Walter said at length. A door upstairs slammed. "I imagine Jim feels very upset about it."

"But -- "

Walter's fraying capacity for maintaining tact while undercaffinated finally snapped. " _Your_ parents always intended to come back to you. That was never in doubt." He turned, fixing Toby with a look calculated to silence. "In some ways, you're much luckier."

Toby's mouth hung open, eyes slowly filling with tears. "You're _mean_ ," he managed, before bolting upstairs himself.

"Thank you for noticing," Walter muttered.

* * *

The backyard was dotted with odd outcroppings of stone -- extruded bedrock. Not unusual in this region, given that land adjacent to a Heartstone occasionally manifested some known geological abnormalities. 

He sat down on one and glanced at his phone. No texts from Barbara. Several from an unlisted number whose identity he could guess all too well. He supposed he should be grateful the messages were nominally about real estate and not just Nomura's usual panicked bluntness.

Walter shook his head in resignation and dialed. After the usual rounds of automated prompts were cleared, she picked up on the first ring. "Stricklander? Is that you?"

"Santa Claus; who else." He flicked puffed rice cereal from his sleeves in disgust. "There's been a change of plans."

"A -- what? Why?"

 _Wouldn't you like to know_ , he thought. "I'm supervising a matter closer to home that needs my direct attention. I'll arrange to have our mutual friend pick up your package." Probably burning through a few Fragwas in the process, but the latest iteration annoyed him anyway. "Have it ready to go."

The silence on the other end was in some respects more worrying than the protest he expected. "I don't think that's a good idea," she eventually replied. "I haven't shown anyone what I've got, not even Howard."

Walter's head swiveled at the sound of a television set being turned on. "I do hope you're not overselling this, Nomura. I can only stand so much disappointment." He stood up, walking over to the kitchen window and peering in. 

Toby and Jim were watching cartoons -- at least, that was the theory. Toby lay huddled on the rug with an old blanket wrapped around him, at a distance from Jim, folded over on himself on the sofa; silent, small. His eyes reflected the flashing lights of the screen but did not follow them.

"Stricklander?"

He sighed. "Yes?"

"I said, this should be with you in Arcadia, the sooner the better. I'm -- worried that someone might notice it. Someone from _downstairs_ ," Nomura said, pointedly.

Walter bit his lip, taking in the sad little tableau inside the house. As his gaze expanded to include the kitchen, something caught his eye: a piece of paper with his own handwriting on it, pinned to the refrigerator.

Inspiration struck. "I think there's a work-around. Let me call you back." 

 

 _4\. Entrée._

 

"Did you go to the bathroom?" Walter queried.

Toby -- eyes slightly red, expression otherwise normal -- shrugged. "Yeah."

"Go again. I'm not pulling over every fifteen minutes." His only response was a face, which he opted to ignore, instead turning to Jim. "Did you find it?"

"Yeah." The boy gestured towards a cooler almost as large as himself. "In the basement. What are we doing?"

"We're going to the San Isidore Fish Market."

"What's that?" 

"It's in the name, Jim; context clues." Walter lifted the cooler's lid to inspect its contents. "We'll need to purchase some ice."

"What's the ice for?" Toby asked.

"The fish, Tobias."

"Why are we getting fish?"

He took a deep breath. "We're making bouillabaisse." 

"Eww! No way! No way no way no way!" Toby ran around in small, manic circles. "Gross! I am NOT eating that!"

Jim's expression momentarily contained interest, before a cloud passed over it. "I don't wanna make bouillabaisse."

"Your mother will be tired once she gets back," Walter responded, probing the subtle weaknesses he knew the boy possessed. "A good, hot dinner will be just what she needs. Nourishing and restorative, just a little fancy."

"And _gross_!" wailed Toby.

"I dunno," Jim said, looking off to the side. "It -- I mean -- "

"I'm not taking 'no' for an answer," Walter declared with false cheer. "Come along; out we go."

It was disconcerting for him to see children in the backseat of his car -- or anyone not a goblin, really -- but they weren't the strangest thing he'd transported. "Buckled in?"

Jim glanced down. "What are these stains on the carpet?" 

"Dangers of buying secondhand." Walter quickly readjusted the mirror. "And, away we go -- San Isidore, here we come!" 

"What's an Isidore, anyway?" Toby asked. 

"It's the name of a Christian saint. Two different saints, actually; I'm not sure which one the market's named for." Walter backed them out of the driveway.

"I don't know anybody called Isidore," Toby said, small eyes narrowing in thought. "Is it Spanish?"

"Greek, actually. It means 'gift of Isis.'"

"What's Isis?"

"An Egyptian goddess -- "

Toby launched himself into the space between the front seats; Walter nearly swerved into the trashcans. "Wait, I thought Christians didn't worship other gods?"

"That's -- some names are old, Tobias; they carry over. Put your seatbelt on!"

"Why do you keep calling him 'Tobias'?" Jim asked sullenly. "He's Toby."

"Also a Greek name, after a fashion." Something amusing occurred to him. "And appropriately enough, a name that involves a fish."

"Huh?"

"The Book of Tobit?" Walter attempted to swat Toby back into his seat while keeping an eye on the road. "Don't either of you have anything in the way of a religious education?"

Jim deigned to make eye contact with him in the rear-view mirror. "Is Greek the same thing as Egyptian?" 

Walter decided not to bring up the Ptolemaic Dynasty. "No. Anyway, names are strange things with ancient associations. Did you know that James is a variation of Jacob?"

Jim blinked, slowly. "Like . . . my Grampy's name?"

"Yes, exactly; just a different form of it. They mean the same thing: 'one who follows', or alternately -- "

"What's _my_ name mean?" Toby rocketed back between the seats. 

"Sit down! -- 'Goodness', or something to that effect." He refrained from voicing an opinion on how well it suited the boy.

"Cool," grinned Toby, nudging Jim, who seemed lost in thought. After a moment, he added, "Hey, what about 'Walter'?"

"Oh, it's an excellent old name," Stricklander replied. "'Leader of the army'."

 

* * *

 

One hour and twenty minutes later, they pulled under the tile awning encrusted with seagull guano, strung up with Christmas lights. Good time made, and with Walter only having lost his temper twice and Toby needing only three bathroom breaks, he was inclined to view it as a success -- thus far. The tricky bit was coming up soon enough.

Jim squinted at the list, nominally despondent, but Walter detected the faint traces of liveliness returning. "Where do we find eel?"

"I'm sure there's some around here. After all, it goes in sushi -- "

"Ew -- wait." Toby spun around. "Eel's in sushi? Sushi's not gross."

"We'll make a cosmopolitan out of you yet," Walter responded, glancing around the stalls. She had to be around here somewhere -- 

Someone began waving at him from a stall off to the right of the main entrance. "Mr. Strickler? My gosh -- hey!" 

He blinked -- then, in a flash, he recognized who it was. "Is it -- Why, Ms. Choi, how lovely to see you again!" 

The young woman behind the counter flashed him a grin. "Alexa. And same -- wow, it's been years! I can't believe it."

"Neither can I." He glanced up at the sign above the counter. "Somehow I'd completely forgotten your family had a fish stand! Unforgivable, considering that wonderful present you brought me for graduation."

She giggled. "That was crazy. Who gives their teacher a live lobster?"

"It was delicious," he replied. "How've you been?"

Alexa leaned on the table. "Oh, you know, pretty good. Got a degree in business administration, then decided to put it to use here after Tim -- you remember my brother? -- went off to Berkeley."

"Ah, yes -- Engineering?"

She shrugged. "That was the theory. Last I talked to him, he was in a band called 'Papa Skull' or something -- " 

"Why is there an octopus?" Toby demanded, pointing at a softball-sized mass of tentacles on ice in the display case. Jim was staring at it with a sudden intensity that Walter found oddly heartening.

"Oh, hi there," Alexa said, glancing down with a smile. "Sometimes, you haul up stuff you didn't plan on. I'm keeping him here on ice for decoration, but we might cut him up later, put him in some stir-fry . . ."

Jim's ears pricked up. "What kind of stir-fry?"

"Ever heard of nakji bokkeum?" Both boys leaned in, intrigued. "Okay, well, normally you'd use a different kind of octopus than this guy, but what you do is, you take . . ."

Walter let his attention drift from descriptions of spicy cephalopod dishes and scanned the market. This close to noon, activity was dying down, but there were still trucks being unloaded on the eastern side of the square. And right by the display of swordfish . . .

He glanced at the children and Alexa still deep in conversation, then noiselessly melted back into the crowds like a shadow, losing himself between overhangs and crates until he came to a makeshift alley composed of loading pallets and cardboard boxes.

"You're here," she said, guardedly.

"Naturally." He narrowed his eyes at her. "As for you being here, we'll settle that soon enough."

Nomura's own eyes widened momentarily, but she stepped closer. "I brought it."

"Show me. Quickly."

She hoisted a nondescript satchel atop a pile of stacked pallets and peeled away a cocoon of newspapers. The corridor was instantly illuminated with soft, amber light.

"I thought so," Walter breathed, mind racing with possibilities. "A segment of the Progenitor." His hand flitted up to touch it; a warm pulse embedded itself under his skin. 

"The first Heartstone?" Nomura's head swiveled up, green eyes flashing. "Then -- this is the same one that birthed -- "

"Obviously this was removed before its -- restructuring." He'd nearly said, _corruption_. "But, yes: the same material as Gunmar. Doubtless stolen prior to the War, or possibly removed to cultivate a power source for a future troll colony." He touched a hand to the softly-glowing chunk of crystal the size of a teapot. "And now, it's ours. An _amuse-gueule_ for the Skullcrusher's future feast."

Nomura glanced around them. "We shouldn't be talking about this, here."

"Agreed." Walter zipped the satchel shut and slung it over his arm. "We'll discuss this further, tomorrow evening. In the meantime -- "

"Let me go back to Moscow." She took an imploring step forward, gravel seeping into her voice. "I can find the stones. I know -- "

He cut her off, swiftly. "As I said: we'll discuss this later." His conscience and his contempt for once seemed in accord with each other. "I have business to attend to here."

Her lip curled in frustrated derision. "What, buying fish for children? Who are those brats, anyway -- "

Walter turned on his heel, redistributing the weight of the Heartstone to nestle below his shoulderblades. "Good afternoon, Zelda. Don't let me keep you."

 

* * *

 

"I liked that lady," Toby declared, dumping his parcels into the trunk. "Was she really in your class?"

"Alexa? Yes, most of her brothers, too. Charming family." Walter smiled in fond remembrance of a young girl who drew amazing freehand costal maps for extra credit, as well as providing one of the best seafood dinners he'd ever prepared himself. Hopefully, that luck would rub off on him in this next culinary endeavor.

Jim glanced at the satchel as he transferred mussels into the cooler. "What's in there?"

Walter started to lie but then realized to his horror that he couldn't. "Just . . . something."

"A Christmas present?" Toby was instantly at his side, poking the satchel. "Oooh."

"Hands off, thank you. Is everything in the cooler? Toby, what -- what is that?" Walter peered at a plastic bag whose contents seemed less bony than the other items on the list. It slumped behind the other bags.

"She gave us lots of great stuff," Jim remarked, opening the bundles of paper-wrapped buchimgae that Alexa had insisted he take. "Mmm. It's kind of like a latke, try it."

Toby took a dainty bite, dropping his bag into the cooler and shutting the lid. "Mmph. Oh, _yeah_. Man, she really liked you, Jim." Walter helped himself to one of the pancakes, quelling a guilty suspicion that they were eating most of Alexa's lunch. "Probably because she thought Walter's your dad."

"Nuh-uh," Jim said defensively. 

"Bet she did; you guys kinda look the same -- "

"Let's get home before the fish becomes any more fragrant, shall we?" Walter interrupted hurriedly, wanting the otherwise-improved mood to remain. "We'll swing by the grocery store to get the vegetables next."

For a space of minutes, the only sound in the car was chewing, until Jim asked, "Do you have kids?"

"Me?" Walter glanced at him in the mirror. "Hundreds."

"No way." Toby's face came into view. "That's impossible."

"I assure you, it isn't." He merged into traffic. "When you've taught as long as I have, the numbers just keep going up. Of course, they all leave me too soon, but such is life."

Jim's stare intensified. "No, I mean real kids. _Family_ kids."

"No." Walter's eyes refocused on the road. "I'm nobody's father."

 

* * *

 

"Sole."

"Check."

"Eel."

"Check."

"Halibut."

"It's . . . this one?" Jim held up the fish in question.

"It is," confirmed Walter. "Mussels?"

Toby struck a pose. "Check! Look, I'm totally yoked." Jim giggled; a welcome sound.

"Well," Walter remarked, feeling as though the world was a reasonable place once more, "I suppose it's time to get the gills out. Hand me a knife, Jim -- " He paused, seeing that there were two bags on the kitchen island that shouldn't be there. One was the satchel; the other was that lumpy plastic bag Toby had dumped into the cooler. "What are these about?"

Jim glanced at the satchel; shrugged. "You said to bring everything in."

Toby, by contrast, began laughing nervously, shuffling in front of the island. "Boy, I bet cutting off the fish heads is gonna be gross -- "

Walter opened the bag. His mind stalled for a moment or two, then rebooted. "This . . . this is an octopus." Slowly, he turned to regard the boys, their faces straining to maintain childish innocence. "Would you mind telling me how this octopus ended up with the rest of our purchases?"

Toby attempted to whistle; Jim gave Walter an earnest look. "Alexa said we could have it. She said if I wanted to try bokk -- bokk -- that stir fry recipe, she'd give it to me."

Walter passed a hand over his face. "So. Now we have a rotting mollusk to contend with. Wonderful." He sighed. "Well, that can wait. Now: gills."

"Grossssssss," enthused Toby, watching him go to work. "Oh, totally disgusting."

"You can go watch television if this is upsetting, Tobias."

" _Grosssssssssss_."

"How are you so good at that?" Jim asked in admiration. "You just -- it just goes through perfect."

"I've had a lot of experiences with knives, Jim." Especially knives in the throat, but why ruin the moment? "It's all how you hold it, and making quick, firm movements." He swiftly halved the halibut. "It's an extension of your hand, see?"

"Can you show me?"

Instinctually he started to say _of course_ , but sudden awareness of Toby's rapt gaze managed to shut that down before the words got to his mouth. "Well -- we'll see. For now, I'll work on cleaning those mussels -- do you think you can get the soup base started, Jim?"

"Yeah, I can do that!" Out of the corner of Walter's eye, he watched as the boy mashed garlic, opened cans of tomatoes, and -- carefully -- chopped onions with a deliberate skill in excess of his years. It amused him to see Jim trying to incorporate some of the techniques he had used on the fish; clever child. Competent child. How anyone could leave him behind, Walter would never -- 

Toby screamed. "It MOVED!" 

Jim's knife clattered to the ground; Walter nearly sliced his own finger open. He rounded on Toby in fury, only to notice the boy was pointing in horror at the plastic bag on the island, which, indeed, was moving. A tentacle uncoiled, slapping itself down against the satchel.

With the benefit of hindsight, Walter would recognize that a stunned octopus that had been on ice for hours would naturally start to revive in warmer conditions, especially when placed in proximity to a Heartstone. In the moment, of course, it was an emissary of the old gods and he moved to save them all. 

"NO!" yelled Jim, tugging on his sleeve. "Don't hurt it!"

Sense returning, Walter stared down at the miniature monster. "It -- _please_ tell me you didn't know it wasn't dead?"

"I didn't!" Jim insisted, turning the full force of those pained eyes on him. "What would we do with a living octopus?"

"He's not staying in the bag," Toby observed. Walter heard the sounds of rustling plastic and decided this was more than he could deal with right now.

"Jim. Get me the cleaver."

The boy's jaw dropped. "Wh -- Why?"

"I'm afraid that we should put this creature out of its misery now, or dinner will be late. Besides, if you're going to make the stir-fry -- "

Jim looked aghast. "But -- but he's _alive_!"

"I'm going to fix that for us, yes." Walter felt his shoulders sagging under the weight of Jim's stare. "Look, it's an unpleasant job, but as the only adult, it falls to me to deal with it. Go in the other room and don't come until I call --"

" _No_."

"Jim, you can't keep it. Your mother would never -- "

"I don't care about keeping him," Jim said defiantly. "But I'm not gonna let him get all cut up."

Walter threw up his hands in exasperation. "You were going to eat it yourself when you thought it was dead!"

The boy's intense expression somehow got even worse. "Because it wouldn't be my fault if he was already dead! But if you do it, then -- " Water started pooling in Jim's eyes, but his voice barely cracked, "Then it _is_ my fault. Please."

Stricklander had done no shortage of violent things in his life, frequently in front of witnesses. It was a pathetic indication of how much he'd slipped that a mere child's plea on behalf of food could move him to shame.

He inhaled, sharply. "Toby," he snapped, "get me that bowl. I'm transferring your guest to the bathtub. Quickly, now -- we've got dinner to finish."

He decided he wasn't about to tell them about the mussels.

 

_5\. Roast._

 

"It looks gross," Toby said for the twentieth time.

"Then go watch television."

"Smells good, though." The child sniffed, delicately. "What's that thing?"

"A leek," Jim explained. "It's like onion, but green. Well, but not like a green onion -- "

Toby eyed it skeptically. "This isn't kosher, is it?" 

Walter cursed his thoughtlessness; how had he managed to forget that it was still Hanukkah? "I'm afraid this iteration isn't, no. For what it's worth, I'm sure one could adapt a version that omits shellfish -- "

Jim poked at a mussel. "These guys are like clams, right?"

"Same general principle, yes."

"This fish," announced Toby, "is staring back at me."

Jim giggled a little at that, stirring the pot. "Yeah, he looks confused. 'Blargh, why is the bath so hot.'"

Toby was peering so intently into the stockpot that it seemed as though he'd fall in with the slightest push. "It smells really fishy. But . . . _good_?"

Walter's phone buzzed against the chair where he'd hung his jacket. "Keep an eye on the timer, Jim -- and Toby, don't stick your fingers in there; we've established it's inappropriate for consumption." He darted into the hallway, steeling his resolve lest the caller be Nomura.

Barbara's voice did wonders for his nerves. "Hey, Walt. How are you boys doing?"

"Er -- fine." Walter glanced back into the kitchen. "Is everything all right?"

"Actually, yes. Gran-Gran's being monitored, but it looks like she just had low blood pressure and got off the escalator too fast. Tests looked pretty good -- she wants to go on to Seattle, but my cousin Rick's going to drive down and pick her up tomorrow." She chuckled. "Both of us had to talk her out of trying to make her flight; she's unstoppable."

"Can she get a refund for the ticket?"

"I'm working on it, but man, I'm pooped." He heard the faint clicking of a car's turn signal in the background, as well as a blaring horn. "I just got her set up at a hotel and managed to flag down her luggage -- Honestly? As glad as I am that Gran-Gran's all right, all I want to do now is come home and collapse, you know?"

"Of course," Walter soothed. "How soon will you be here?"

"By eight, maybe? Hope that's not too late -- "

"We'll have dinner on the table," he declared. "That reminds me -- if, hypothetically, one were to order from a delicatessen -- who delivers?"

 

* * *

 

It was a testament to the peculiar charms of a stockpot full of seafood that the ringing of the doorbell didn't immediately cause both boys to stampede towards the hall. Instead, the delayed response involved colliding with Walter's back just as he finished signing the receipt for the delivery man.

"Mom?" Jim enquired hopefully.

"Not yet, I'm afraid," Walter replied, passing him a paper bag full of deli food. "Here. Why don't you and Toby get ready to eat?"

"What, this?" Toby peered into the bag, removing its contents with confusion. "This is from Frank's! Why are we eating sandwiches if we're making soup?" 

"Because Antiochus Epiphanes lost. Be proud." He noticed Jim staring at an unwrapped sandwich. "Is there something wrong with it, Jim? It should be fine; it's pastrami."

"Um, it's got cheese on it," Jim said, hesitantly. 

Walter slowly inhaled, counting to ten. "The soup. Please tell me the soup is fine."

Toby shrugged. "I mean, I at least wanna try it, even if there's fish brains -- "

"The matzo ball soup," Walter clarified, pointing to the tub on the dining room table. "That, at least, can safely be assumed to be kosher?"

"Yeah, but -- "

"Dinner is saved."

"I wanna try the fish stew," complained Toby. "C'mon, it's not like Santa would get mad -- "

"I am attempting, however haphazardly, to uphold the spirit of the holiday, if not the Law. Possibly the other way around. And as such -- " He glanced as headlights traveled across the room, his shoulders sagging in relief at the sight of Barbara's car pulling into the driveway. "Just in time. Help me set the table?"

She looked haggard upon crossing the threshold, but her eyes instantly warmed as Jim launched himself into her arms. "Hiya, kiddo. Missed you, too."

"Gran-Gran's okay, right?"

"Still okay. She says not to worry, and she'll call us tomorrow night." Barbara hooked her messenger bag on the staircase bannister, then glanced at the table. "Frank's Deli? Sounds good, thank you, Walt -- " A perplexed expression came across her face. "Uh, is something burning?"

As if to underscore her concern, the fire alarm shrieked, prompting Walter and Jim to collide with each other in a mad dash towards the kitchen. Rounding the corner, he was horrified to see flames erupting on the counter next to the stovetop; a towel had been moved into the path of the --

Water cascaded over his face, and the next few seconds were something of a blur, but he was able to infer that Toby had grabbed the spray nozzle from the sink and was doing his level best to put out the fire. 

" _Flour!_ " Walter managed to gasp, staggering forward. "Throw flour on -- " The ceiling abruptly came into view as he skidded on the wet linoleum, knocking over the trash. He managed to right himself just in time to receive a face full of flour and smoke.

"Um, you can stop spraying, Toby," he heard Jim say. "It's out."

Wiping his face, Walter surveyed the kitchen -- water pooling on every surface, gooey where Jim had thrown the flour -- and prayed that Barbara would stay in the hallway. They were vain prayers, and as she took in the aftermath of the fire, the only sound was that of the alarm.

"So," she said, finally. "Looks like everyone's all right? Toby? Jim?"

"Sorry, Mom." 

"Walter?" 

"Er," he managed. "S-Sorry about that. We might've gotten distracted when we were -- that is -- "

Barbara carefully made her way to the still-simmering stockpot. "Wait. What are you guys cooking? I thought dinner was on the table -- " She lifted the lid and then dropped it with a scream. "Walter -- Walter, why are there _fish heads_ in the -- oh god -- "

"You don't _eat_ them!" Toby said, indignant. "The brains don't float out. I watched."

She staggered back, waving a hand in front of her face. "That -- that's just -- " With customary grace, or rather the lack thereof, she stumbled into the upturned wastebin, which promptly disgorged snipped-off fins, gills, and spines onto the floor and also her legs. "Oh _god_ \-- "

"They didn't come with guts, just the bony bits and the neck stuff," Jim informed her, obviously intuiting the nature of her distress. "Mom?"

Barbara coughed. "I -- I'm gonna go for just a moment," she muttered, lunging for the stairs. 

Walter watched her go with a feeling of intense and sudden hopelessness. "Well, that didn't go as planned," he said, wiping goop out of his eyes.

Jim surveyed the kitchen with resignation. "We should probably clean this up, huh."

"Yes, we should." Walter sighed. "Toby, please turn off the faucet."

"I kinda feel like we're forgetting something?" Toby remarked, putting the nozzle back.

The scream that reverberated throughout the house was promptly followed by the sound of stomping feet and a sudden, wet thud at the base of the stairs. Slowly, with a dread he'd not felt in lifetimes, Walter turned and observed a stunned octopus in the entryway.

"Oh, right," whispered Toby.

"WHY," sounded a voice imbued with the dulcet tones of the Angel of Wrath, "WHY IS THERE -- WHY -- WALTER!"

The urge to flee and resume the fight from a different quarter was an old one, but the sudden grip on his arm jerked Stricklander's consciousness back to a reality divorced from battle. Jim's expression was iron. 

"I can finish the soup," he said. "You hafta get the octopus out of here. Quick, before Mom gets mad."

Walter began to move, but the tiny grip tightened. "And no killing."

"Jim -- "

"WALTER?"

"No killing," repeated Jim. 

"No killing," the monster assented, and lunged for the mollusk.

 

* * *

 

You did not advertise some aspects of yourself; another unwritten sub-clause in the Code. Only half of the Janus Order knew what both faces of its Director looked like. And even among that elect, precious few were aware that he possessed a decidedly rare physiological variant on the Changeling form, and he'd made a point of keeping it that way.

It wasn't that Stricklander didn't enjoy flying. Rather, he enjoyed it too much; that was the problem. 

Currently, the continual slippery suction of a very angry and presumably confused octopus over his left arm was keeping him from deriving too much pleasure from the exercise, to say nothing of a pit of dread beginning to rot out his stomach with the prospect of facing Barbara again. 

Arcadia glowed in a riot of Christmas lights underneath him and he cursed everything about this benighted day. _Idiotic_ , snarled the remnants of his dignity, _idiotic to play fun uncle to a pair of hyperactive brats; even more idiotic to accommodate the travel plans of your most rebellious underling. And so, so idiotic to have left the Heartstone back at the Lake house; prince of idiots, Stricklander_ \--

It took him a moment to register an odd tingling sensation emanating throughout his body, and that threw him deeper into this black rage. Observing a deep corner of shadow underneath him, he folded his wings and narrowly avoided the skyward-facing lights of St. Michael's in a descent close enough to let him count the shingles on the steeple. For a moment, he considered landing on the bell tower, but Modern architecture would not accommodate a gargoyle; he continued to the patch of darkness. It turned out to be just next to a large Nativity display.

He changed skins just long enough to retrieve a ringing phone from his trousers. "Hullo? Barbara?"

"Who's Barbara?"

In that moment, promises to Jim be dammed, Walter's aggravation caused him to whip the fleshy body of the octopus against the side of the church -- or he would have, but the beast had been sufficiently terrified by the flight that its hold was now impossible to dislodge. Walter inhaled sharply, counted to ten, and then retook his troll form; that viselike grip was hard on flesh and skin.

"Nomura," he growled. "Where are you now?" The octopus pulsed an indignant series of colors.

"Still in San Isidore." A pause. "Awaiting further instructions."

"You're forcing the discussion, I see." He attempted to reconsolidate the octopus's weight nearer his elbow; it lunged for his wing. "Whoever told you that persistence endeared you to authority didn't have your best interests at heart." He peered around the edge of the Nativity scene, finding partial refuge behind a nearly life-sized camel. 

A snort. " _You_ told me that." 

He managed to coax the cephalopod back down to his hand. "I won't deny that your recent acquisition isn't impressive; it is. But in getting it, you've lost Bular -- "

"No one can rein him in," the voice on the other line spat. "Not even you --"

"You dare -- "

"What was that?" a human voice -- perilously close -- asked, accompanied by footsteps. Improvisation and quick-thinking had been Stricklander's allies for years. He muted the call and dove into action, or more accurately, inaction.

The couple who paused in front of the Nativity set were just out of his line of sight, so he concentrated on remaining as still as possible until he heard their footsteps receding, as well as their conversation.

"I mean, I get it, but it's not really part of the Christmas story . . ."

"They should make it look more like St. Michael, at least." 

Sighing in relief, Stricklander eased himself out of the pose of subjugation from under the mannequin of an angel, grabbing the now straw-covered octopus out of the manger. 

Aloft once more -- not without difficulty, he was past his prime -- he managed to re-orient himself over the city. "It could have been so simple," he seethed at his passenger, "A cleaver through that supposedly clever little brain of yours, and it would have been over in no time. You don't know how lucky you are." The deathgrip it had on his arm indicated that, if it was indeed capable of higher thought, it was inclined to challenge Stricklander's assertion with regard to luck. 

He landed in the midst of the rubble that once had been Giovanni's, grateful that there were so few floodlights and that human activity on this street had slowed to a crawl after the restaurant's demise. Leaning against the side of a backhoe, he sighed and redialed Nomura.

"Why," he said by way of greeting, "do you need to go to Moscow so badly?"

"I think I found an associate of whoever broke into Korshas's shop," she said, eagerly. "He was in the area when it happened -- maybe our perp even stopped in just before or after it happened. Problem is, it's been almost two years, so I have to get to him before the trail goes completely cold -- "

As the night grew darker, the air cooler and the octopus more irritated, Stricklander listened to Nomura outline her theories and research regarding her lead with a growing sense of resignation, slumping down the side of the machinery. This was it, after all. A logical juncture to disengage himself from Barbara Lake, doubtless eased by the chaos unleashed in her home. Easy enough to take umbrage at some well-deserved complaint she would doubtless levy when he returned for the Heartstone; easy enough to pick a fight that would finally slam shut this door that should never have been opened in the first place. He had skill enough to do it, even if it had failed him before. Exploit her frustration, work in some deliberate insensitivity with a soupçon of petty cruelty, and thus be freed.

"Stricklander?"

"Hmm?" He shook himself out of his dark reveries. "What."

"I -- I know it's a long shot, but you know Pyotr; he thinks he's the only one who knows how to track a cat in the dark. I've tried to tell him, but he won't listen." 

Stricklander surveyed the deepening hole in the ground. Once construction began in earnest, the building crew would be swapped out with Janus Operatives, since the underground parking area was considerably larger than indicated on the official blueprint. Then, inevitably, other Changelings. If he waited to break things off, it would only get worse with time.

"Go, then." His voice was toneless. "Report back in six months; don't talk to me until then. If Pyotr objects, tell him to write a formal report." He cut off the call midway through her jubilant cry of gratitude, then stood up with a sigh. 

Sanjuro's Sushi Bar was doing relatively little business at this time of night, other than a few carousers in the back corner trying to figure out the karaoke machine. Walter took his time surveying the menu -- waiting just long enough for the chef to get distracted by a phonecall and the other occupant to choke on a hunk of wasabi that had mysteriously appeared on his nigiri roll -- before dropping the octopus over the side of the bar.

"Are you all right?" he enquired conscientiously of his fellow diner, pounding on his back while watching the recently-liberated cephalopod slither up to the neon-lit fishtank full of tangs and wrasses. It seemed to pause just long enough on the edge in order to give Walter the filthiest look he'd received in ages, before lowering itself into the saltwater with visible relief, tentacle by tentacle. 

"You doin' okay?" The chef refilled the coughing man's water, shaking his head. "Gotta pace yourself." He turned to Walter. "Made up your mind yet? Don't know if you saw the specials: unagi or tako rolls, half-price." 

"Unagi, please." Walter handed him the menu. "I've had quite enough octopus already."

 

_6\. Salad._

 

He lurked outside the house for at least half an hour before going in. The blinds had been closed, but a faint glow still exuded from behind their slits. The menorah in the living room window was just about going out, with the tinsel gleam of the Christmas tree filling the other half of the space with a pinkish candyfloss light.

A dream. A strange, alien dream. 

He stood on the porch for another five minutes, straining to catch any hints of activity within the house. It seemed like there might have been voices upstairs, so he tried the handle. It was unlocked. In the silence of the hallway, a cowardly impulse overtook him to just grab the Heartstone and leave, deferring this painful task for tomorrow.

It was still on the island in the kitchen. Barbara was also there.

"Hey," she said, neutrally. "I saved you some soup." She was leaning against the sink, quietly munching on a piece of gelt. "Pretty good, actually."

Walter stared. There had been a plan, there had been words, terrible words, cold and cutting and ruthless; there had been an angle of attack and contrived points of offense that would have propelled him into this act of dissolution and in retrospect rather a lot had hinged on her being furious with him.

"I mean," she continued, "the fish heads were a bit intense, but Jim said you don't serve them up in the bowl? So." She flicked the chocolate's wrapper at the counter, then turned around to resume washing dishes. "Weird pairing with pastrami sandwiches, though."

"Not kosher," he managed, wondering if that could start an argument.

"You know that this is mostly us commemorating my Grandpa, right?" Barbara smiled, a sad, distant little smile. "The man who ate BLTs for lunch up until the day he died?"

"There seemed to be a principle involved," Walter retorted. "Not everyone wants to be Hellenized, even if their name might be Greek."

"Sorry?"

"Toby." He glanced at the bowl left by the gently-simmering stockpot. "He had reservations about it."

"He also ate three helpings and wants to make another batch. Jim, too." She held a glass up to the light, inspecting her handiwork. "Even after I made them clean up the floor. You really know how to entertain kids, Walt."

This wasn't working. He needed her angry, not wistful, not amused, not tired. So tired, as he could see on the lines of her face, the sallow patches under her eyes, the way she was leaning against the side of the counter.

He reached out, stilling her hand. "Let me finish those."

"I'll dry." Barbara paused. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I'm fine." He rolled up his sleeves. "Tell me how it went."

And in the glow of incandescent light and candlelight and fairy lights, with December deepening slowly outside, it happened as it had always happened: that ease, that strange terrible ease of conversation and coexistence that came from nowhere. Time fell away, becoming a meaningless abstraction that belonged somewhere outside the warm haze of the kitchen and the sound of her voice.

"So you let them sucker you into getting an octopus?"

"I hardly -- " He glanced up from the sink. "Oh. 'Sucker'. Very clever."

Barbara giggled into her glass of wine. "Took you a moment." She tossed her hair behind her shoulders; it gleamed like the Heartstone. "What did you do with it, anyway?"

Walter snorted. "Unfortunately, Jim was insistent on its slimy little life being spared, so I had to find it new accommodations. Substantially complicated, I might add, by freshwater not being an option." He glanced at his lower arms, where a few imprints of its wrath were still evident. "And us being far enough inland . . ."

"So, an aquarium?"

"Luckily, I knew of a private collector that needed a little variety in their setup." And would likely be wondering why their showy fish were disappearing, but wasn't life enriched by small surprises? "A promise is a promise."

"You didn't have to do that," she said.

"I think I did, actually." He caught his reflection in the soap bubbles scudding over the plate and was surprised by his own expression. "Maybe that was behind this whole misguided endeavor, really. He -- Toby seems fixated on the idea that Jim's father will be coming back for the holidays, and I assume that's not the case."

"No." Barbara took a swig of her wine. "He blocked us." She drummed her fingers on the counter. "I didn't want to contact him directly, but Jim -- " She exhaled. "I should have just said 'no', but maybe part of me thought his own son would get through to him." 

"Ah." Walter reached for his own glass. "One would think."

"And of course there's all these pictures of him eating Thanksgiving dinner with the girlfriend and kids," Barbara continued, shaking her head. "Jim tried calling him then, too." She spent a furious thirty seconds trying to get a pair of salad tongs into the silverware drawer before throwing it back into the sink. "I don't get him, Walt. I used to think I understood what was going on, but now?"

Walter -- halfway through the thankless task of removing burnt onion from a ceramic surface -- asked, "I take it you never really thought he'd make good on his promise to visit?"

"No." Barbara sighed. "Just something he said; who knows why. And Jim latched onto it like it was a promise in writing." She leaned against the counter, fingers twisting through her auburn hair. "Wonder if he did it just to spite me -- Jim, I mean -- I mean, Jim's dad, not -- "

"No, I followed." It was a monumentally petty deed if true, but little of what he'd heard of the man indicated that he was likely to think that far ahead. Not for the first time, he wondered what circumstances had brought Jim Lake, Sr. and Barbara together, and if it was indicative that her tastes in men were questionable. After all, her former husband wasn't planning to overthrow the forces of this world, indicating a singular lack of ambition on his part. 

He glanced off to the side, where Barbara had unwrapped another piece of gelt and was chewing it with pronounced despondency. "I'm grateful for the distraction, really. I mean, Jim loves cooking, and he likes you, Walt. I'm not -- I'm not trying to recruit you for anything, honest, but it means a lot to me that there's somebody who can model good male behavior, you know?"

Walter arched an eyebrow. "And who would this be?"

"I mean it," Barbara said, looking up. "Even if it was a stupid promise. Thank you for honoring it."

Abashed, he set his glass down and resumed washing. "I don't know that honor is involved, frankly. We get on, for whatever reason; hardly an effort. Whereas Toby -- " He scrubbed a ladle with slightly more force than necessary, " -- Toby is a trial and a half."

"Oh, yeah." He could hear the smile in her voice. "But a great kid. Just a little too . . . enthusiastic."

"I've never envied your grandmother's hearing as much as I have today. Speaking of which, she's not really determined to keep going after all this?"

"Evelyn the Unstoppable? You bet." Barbara topped off her glass. "I even offered to drive her back to the airport tomorrow, but of course she wouldn't let me. I think she feels embarrassed about the whole thing -- but at least the doctor who treated her backed me up on her toenail situation." She shook her head. "Gran-Gran was always so on top of things before Grampy died; now she just puts everyone else ahead of her until she's about to fall over . . ."

"That sounds familiar," Walter said, nudging her elbow. "A family of Atlases."

Barbara laughed a little at that. "Neurotic, you mean."

"Well, the world hasn't dropped yet." There was a particularly thick layer of dried brown mustard caking half the plate; he applied elbow grease. "What's the occasion? Early Christmas? Late Hanukkah?"

"Oh, there's a bunch of family up in Washington that she tries to see once a year," Barbara replied, vaguely. "Got to do the rounds."

He hesitated before speaking, aware of an old ache in her words. "You said you were from Seattle."

"Yes." She stacked plates in the shelf. "My parents live there."

Walter returned his attention to the side of his own plate before venturing, "Your grandmother said something to me at our last dinner which I didn't know how to interpret. Something about family cutting each other off." He watched Barbara's reflection in the window pause in the act of closing the cabinet.

"It happens," she conceded. "Gran-Gran feels bad about it because her family did that to her when she married my grandfather. They came around, but it took years." She turned to him. "Walt, you . . . you don't talk to your family, right?"

"No." And, he supposed, he could hardly keep delving without further fabrications, and it was warm here, and it smelled of steam and wax and children, and lying just seemed tiresome, even if it was all he ever did. "I suppose we guard ourselves the best we can."

Barbara reached out to take the plate. "I'll tell you, if you want."

"Tell me when you want." He gripped the side of her hand. "Not before."

"I will, I promise. Maybe not now." Her own hand closed over his.

He kissed it. "You should go to bed, dear Atlas."

Barbara reached behind her to the stove, turning off the stockpot. "If you're not too sick of this house by now, you should, too." She glanced at its contents. "I think there's enough to put in the fridge; we can just soak the rest in the sink." 

Walter's brain was experiencing difficulty with processing a recent development, which was par for the course after this bloody day. "Sorry. What did you say, a moment ago?"

"Toby and Jim have the cots. I'm crashing in Gran-Gran's room." She dug out some ceramic containers, cursing under her breath as their lids fell to the floor. "Drat. I mean, it's up to you, but it might be nice?"

"But -- " There were reasons upon reasons why this was an inadvisable idea; he just couldn't quite articulate any. "Won't Jim mind?" he managed, somewhat lamely.

Barbara arched an eyebrow. "We're not getting up to anything, mister. Not on my grandma's bed." She shook out her hair again. "I don't think I could even if I wanted to right now."

"That's not what I meant," Walter protested. "It -- I don't want to overstep myself, that's all." A sudden rising terror was coming over him, a fear of this place with its fading framed photographs and its pockets of clutter and how the light in the kitchen glowed just so, and how these were not his things, not his modalities, not the landmarks of a world he knew or had ever traversed, and yet whose soft shadows kept beckoning him deeper into their midst.

"It's a bit late to worry about that, Walt," Barbara said with unmistakable fondness, heaving the emptied stock pot into the sink. "C'mon. I have tomorrow off, you've got tomorrow off . . ."

And if he went back to the apartment, everything would be fine. A well-ordered space to plot well-ordered schemes that had been years in the making; an airless, featureless place with only the barest concessions to personality, as he lived in his office and in the work and the dark of his own mind. And between two and three in the morning, the cast of light from the living room overhead fixture would become insufferable, rankling the psyche, and he would stalk out into the night and order his clamoring thoughts from his overlook, as he had for how many years, now?

Barbara moved unhurriedly past him to pull the blinds, going through the motions of putting the house to rest. "Upstairs bedroom on the left, if you're staying." He heard the faint tinkle of glass ornaments tinkling as the tree was unplugged. "Otherwise, I guess I'll see you next week?"

It occurred to him that he had never woken up with her before.

 

* * *

 

Evelyn's room belonged to a widow, smelling of eucalyptus and baby powder, the sagging mattress doubtless kept for the sake of a familiar indentation. Jacob now existed only the walls, his frame growing steadily portlier through the progression of time, that beaming visage never losing its spark-eyed generosity towards the viewer. The dresser -- with a miniature tree softly illuminating the room -- had even more pictures of Jacob and Evelyn and various grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Several had been placed face-down; he picked one up.

Barbara, braided pigtails and huge eyes, stared back at him. She huddled awkwardly underneath the joined arms of a man and woman whose features she shared, her own arms attempting to support an alarmingly frail toddler with sunken cheekbones.

He placed the frame back down as he heard the door open. "I assume that Gran-Gr -- that Evelyn won't object to my presence in her room, either?"

Barbara smirked, retrieving something from a knitting basket by a tufted chair. "I think she'd be okay with it."

He stared at the complicated mass of yarn that had 'WALTER' prominently displayed along the top. "Good grief. I thought -- I didn't actually think she'd go through with that."

"It means you rate." Barbara set the stocking back down. "Well, or she needed an excuse to buy new yarn. Anyway, she keeps trying to get me to take this room, but I'm not kicking my own grandmother out on the couch." She stretched, then unhooked her brassiere and shrugged off her shirt. "I only sleep here when she's away."

Walter attempted not to stare at the odd spectacle of Barbara's nakedness disappearing into a nightshirt. Likely it was exhaustion catching up to him, but remembering the correct protocol for this situation was impossible at the moment, with nothing of his past supplying an answer. "I -- I didn't bring anything to sleep in."

"Just keep your undies on so you don't traumatize the kid if he has a bad dream." She patted the quilt. "C'mon, Strickler. I don't bite." She smiled. "Not as hard as you, anyway."

It occurred to him that all this deliberating could quickly seem strange if unresolved; thus he removed the approximation of his clothes, folding them neatly on the chair. "Shall I turn off the tree?"

"It's my night-light." Barbara stretched. "Cozy, huh?"

Affection managed to override pique, just. "Afraid of the dark, Atlas?" He slid underneath the covers of this new and unfamiliar bed, wondering yet again how the thread of his life had tangled itself here. "Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties?" He snaked a tentative arm around her shoulder. "Things that go 'bump' in the night?"

She melded into his side and something deep within him finally unclenched. "Mmm. I suppose you'll keep me safe from monsters."

"I . . . suppose, yes."

He felt her smile into the side of his neck. "Unless they're octopus."

The glow of the tree cast tenebrous pools under the frames on the walls as the house settled into itself, foundation shifting into dust. Barbara's limbs stilled against his, her breath becoming heavy, slow, lost in itself while the world stopped existing outside of this tiny oubliette of dead memory. A bed -- how utterly improbable -- and himself, and a human, and an encroaching stillness.

How had he lived this long, seen so much, done all manner of things, and never this?

 

_7\. Dessert._

 

Stricklander awoke in slow stages from dreams of _shadow, and fire, and running, and something sharp and shining. the woman_ was in front of him.

Fingers toyed with his quiff. "Your hair is _amazing_ right now." She grinned. "Cock-a-doodle-do."

He had to blink repeatedly before anything made sense. "Good morning to you, too." Stretching, his back promptly spasmed and he cursed last night's aerial jaunt; why on earth hadn't he taken the car? "I think this mattress is past its prime."

"Co-signed." Barbara gently flipped him onto his stomach, then straddled his back and began working on his shoulders with her miraculous hands. "Geez. You weren't giving them horsey rides, were you? You've got knots in the weirdest places . . ."

Facedown in the pillow, Walter moaned; whether in agony or ecstasy, he could not say. Various declarations of eternal loyalty followed, as did several involuntary curses in Trollish; it was just as well they were muffled.

"Gran-Gran and Rick texted me a while ago; everything's okay on that front," Barbara remarked as she worked. "He says she's extra feisty today; probably a good sign. Had some trouble with loading the luggage with all that junk he stores in the back of his truck. Looks like the ticket can't be refunded, but they'll give her credit towards a new one; at least it's not a total loss. The kids are downstairs -- yep, that's the Gun Robot theme song -- so they'll be occupied for at least twenty-five minutes."

Walter, by now all but purring, shifted himself to face her. "Really."

Barbara nodded, sleep-touseled hair slipping from her shoulders. "Really." A finger traced an idle path across his sternum. "You know, Walt, it was really sweet of you to look after the boys all yesterday. I'm so grateful."

" _Really_."

She leant forward. "Very grateful." The finger seemed to be wandering lower than his chest.

" _How_ very grateful?"

It transpired that there were indeed things Barbara could get up to in her grandmother's bed.

 

_8\. Coffee._

 

Depositing the sheets in the ancient washer, Walter re-emerged from the basement to a kitchen now occupied by the boy, clad in licensed pyjamas. "Hi."

"Good morning," he replied, grateful he'd dressed. "How's Gun Robot?"

Jim shrugged. "Reruns." He was looking at Walter with a particular intense scrutiny that unnerved him -- not because there was any hostility in it, not exactly, but there was a perception of something that a nearly seven-year-old mind couldn't quite name but thought it recognized.

"I'm sorry I didn't get back in time for dinner," Walter said. "You'll be pleased to know that the octopus is rehomed."

Jim leaned forward, guileless blue eyes somber. "Really?"

"Really." And maybe, Walter realized, maybe that was why he'd had to go to such lengths to safely get rid of the creature; it was impossible to lie to Jim. The boy was a walking, talking gaggletack. "Not the ocean, but the next best place." Provided, he thought, that it liked karaoke. "Did supper take very long to clean up?"

Jim sighed theatrically. "A _billion_ years." He folded his arms. "I had to pick up all the fish parts on the floor and it was so gross. But Mom ate the bouillabaisse," he added, a smile falling across his gap-toothed face. "She said she wished Gran-Gran was here to have some."

"Well, next time, perhaps."

"Oh, no." Jim shook his head. "Mom says we're never making it again."

Walter didn't exactly feel devastated by this revelation. "At least you can chalk this up to experience." He glanced at the base of the stairs, where Barbara had just descended and was looking wonderfully relaxed, if residually flushed. "We ought to make breakfast, don't you think?"

Jim didn't answer, scampering to hug his mother instead. Walter took the opportunity to inspect the still-unopened satchel on the island, and for a terrible moment wondered if yesterday's events were all a dream; if Nomura had been wrong. The hunk of crystal seemed oddly dull in the depths of the bag, as though dormant, or --

"What's that?" Jim asked, reappearing and hoisting his wiry little frame onto the counter. "Fish?"

"No, it's nothing -- " 

Barbara appeared over Walter's other shoulder, peering inside. "It better not be fish, or -- oh. Walt, I didn't know you went in for these things."

"I -- what?" He stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"Salt lamps," she clarified, tapping the top of the crystal. It pulsed with light. "Whoa. It comes with batteries?"

"Er -- " Walter coughed, his mind casting about for technobabble to assemble into a convincingly dull explanation. "Ionization is an interesting process, and I do have a few crystals lurking about -- "

"Oh, like the one in your office. Right." She grinned at him, sweeping her hair back. "Walter Strickler, secret wizard."

"Wait, really?" Toby thundered into the kitchen, skidding on the linoleum. "Jim, I told you he was a wizard, he's like a billion years old -- "

Jim was staring at the Heartstone with rapt fascination, his face almost touching its surface. The light reflecting in his eyes was -- somehow --

Without knowing why, Walter quickly picked up the satchel and buttoned it shut. "How does everyone feel about pancakes?"

"PANCAKES!" yelled Toby, pumping his fists. "AWESOMESAUCE!" 

Barbara winced. "C'mon, Toby; indoor voice. Jim? Help me start the batter?" She bent under the island and began rummaging around for pans.

The boy looked as though he were entranced, glancing at the satchel that Walter was trying and failing to surreptitiously set atop the refrigerator. After a few seconds of uncomfortable eye contact, he pushed himself off the counter and stood in front of Walter.

"Goose," he said, firmly. "I wanna do a goose for Christmas. Not a turkey."

Walter couldn't tell if he felt relieved or terrified. "Tricky. It's a fatty bird."

"A big one, like in the Tiny Tim movie. On a silver plate." Jim scratched his head. "And stuffing."

"Stuffed goose!" Toby spun around in circles. "Yeah! A chicken inside a goose! No, chicken inside a turkey inside a goose -- "

Under the counter, Barbara made a noise of distress. "What? No!"

"Have _you_ ever made a goose?" Jim asked, looking hopefully up at Walter.

He could -- he supposed -- make the rounds as intended, traveling to places far away from the screaming of children and the burdens of mortality, places where his word had weight and force behind it. Scrutinize the inner workings of the structure he'd been building for ages, then drift about in back alleys and bazaars of distant cities, freed of the tyranny of human expectations. 

Alone, yes, but then you didn't get where he'd gotten in life without that being the safest route.

Walter looked over at Barbara, who was very obviously attempting to seem as though she wasn't listening and had subsequently mixed up baking powder with baking soda. He glanced back at Jim, vibrating quietly in front of him. 

They'd be here soon enough, his true brethren; maybe he could keep pretending until then.

"Goose? No," he said, lowering himself towards the boy. "But I think it's time I tried."


End file.
